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Papers by Cara Tan

Research paper thumbnail of Leveraging copresence to increase the effectiveness of gamified personalized normative feedback

Research paper thumbnail of Social Mediation of Persuasive Media in Adolescent Substance Prevention

Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, Jun 16, 2017

Social commentary about prevention messages may affect their likelihood of acceptance. To investi... more Social commentary about prevention messages may affect their likelihood of acceptance. To investigate this possibility, student participants (N = 663) viewed 3 antimarijuana advertisements, each followed immediately by videotaped discussions involving 4 adults or 4 adolescents using either extreme or moderate language in their positive commentaries. The commentaries were expected to affect participants' perceptions of the extent to which the ads were designed to control their behavior (perceived control), which was hypothesized to inhibit persuasion. Two indirect effects analyses were conducted. Marijuana attitudes and usage intentions were the outcome variables. Both analyses revealed statistically significant source by language interactions on participants' perceived control (both p < .02). Further analyses revealed significant indirect effects of language extremity on attitudes and intentions through perceived control with adult, but not peer sources (both p < .05)....

Research paper thumbnail of The Potential (F)utility of a Passive Organ Donor Registration Opportunity: A Conceptual Replication

Progress in Transplantation, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Anger, frustration, boredom and the Department of Motor Vehicles: Can negative emotions impede organ donor registration?

Social Science & Medicine, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Influencing Help-Seeking Among People With Elevated Depressive Symptomatology: Mistargeting as a Persuasive Technique

Clinical Psychological Science, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Help Seeking Outcome Expectancies

Research paper thumbnail of The Sex of Ad Viewers As a Determinant of Ad Evaluation: Matching the Sex of Viewers, Ad Characters, and Narrators in Drug Prevention Advertisements

INTRODUCTION: Determining the efficacy of media campaigns targeting health behaviors has been a f... more INTRODUCTION: Determining the efficacy of media campaigns targeting health behaviors has been a focus of social science researchers for a number of years now; results show that pro-health campaigns typically achieve only modest impact. However, recent research suggests that consideration of message features and individual-level differences may play an important role in pro-health message effectiveness and improve weak effects reported in previous evaluations of health campaigns. One feature of persuasive messages that has received a substantial amount of attention is the sex of the message-source. A separate yet complementary stream of research examines persuasion via the transportation-imagery model (TIM) which posits that in narrative contexts, persuasion occurs as a function of an individual being “transported” into the narrative world. The present study brings together these disparate literatures to assess the potential interplay of viewer sex and the sex of ad characters as wel...

Research paper thumbnail of Why Dream Teams Don't Always Succeed: Team Cohesion and Success

Research paper thumbnail of Attitude–behavior consistency, the principle of compatibility, and organ donation: A classic innovation

Research paper thumbnail of Attitude–behavior consistency, the principle of compatibility, and organ donation: A classic innovation

Research paper thumbnail of The power of the proposition: Frequency of marijuana offers, parental knowledge, and adolescent marijuana use

Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2015

Background: The frequency with which adolescents are offered marijuana has been investigated as a... more Background: The frequency with which adolescents are offered marijuana has been investigated as a predictor of marijuana use. The current study was designed to test whether the number of marijuana offers received provides an indirect path between parental knowledge and adolescents' marijuana use. Methods: Data from the nationally representative National Survey of Parents and Youth were examined. Analysis 1 tested the association between frequency of being offered marijuana and adolescents' (N = 4264) marijuana usage in the subsequent year. Analysis 2, spanning a three-year time frame, tested whether the frequency of marijuana offers at the second year of the panel study bridged the relationship between parental knowledge in Year 1 and marijuana use in Year 3. Results: Analysis 1 indicated that the frequency with which adolescents were offered marijuana predicted usage one year later, after controlling for previous usage and nine other common predictors of marijuana use. Analysis 2 revealed an indirect relationship between parental knowledge and use through the number of marijuana offers the adolescent received. Conclusion: There was a strong link between the number of offers received and adolescents' future marijuana use. Higher parental knowledge predicted reductions in offer frequency, which was associated with lower levels of marijuana use. Reducing the number of marijuana offers an adolescent receives could serve as a useful focus for intervention programs targeting parents.

Research paper thumbnail of Leveraging copresence to increase the effectiveness of gamified personalized normative feedback

Research paper thumbnail of Social Mediation of Persuasive Media in Adolescent Substance Prevention

Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, Jun 16, 2017

Social commentary about prevention messages may affect their likelihood of acceptance. To investi... more Social commentary about prevention messages may affect their likelihood of acceptance. To investigate this possibility, student participants (N = 663) viewed 3 antimarijuana advertisements, each followed immediately by videotaped discussions involving 4 adults or 4 adolescents using either extreme or moderate language in their positive commentaries. The commentaries were expected to affect participants' perceptions of the extent to which the ads were designed to control their behavior (perceived control), which was hypothesized to inhibit persuasion. Two indirect effects analyses were conducted. Marijuana attitudes and usage intentions were the outcome variables. Both analyses revealed statistically significant source by language interactions on participants' perceived control (both p < .02). Further analyses revealed significant indirect effects of language extremity on attitudes and intentions through perceived control with adult, but not peer sources (both p < .05)....

Research paper thumbnail of The Potential (F)utility of a Passive Organ Donor Registration Opportunity: A Conceptual Replication

Progress in Transplantation, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Anger, frustration, boredom and the Department of Motor Vehicles: Can negative emotions impede organ donor registration?

Social Science & Medicine, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Influencing Help-Seeking Among People With Elevated Depressive Symptomatology: Mistargeting as a Persuasive Technique

Clinical Psychological Science, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Help Seeking Outcome Expectancies

Research paper thumbnail of The Sex of Ad Viewers As a Determinant of Ad Evaluation: Matching the Sex of Viewers, Ad Characters, and Narrators in Drug Prevention Advertisements

INTRODUCTION: Determining the efficacy of media campaigns targeting health behaviors has been a f... more INTRODUCTION: Determining the efficacy of media campaigns targeting health behaviors has been a focus of social science researchers for a number of years now; results show that pro-health campaigns typically achieve only modest impact. However, recent research suggests that consideration of message features and individual-level differences may play an important role in pro-health message effectiveness and improve weak effects reported in previous evaluations of health campaigns. One feature of persuasive messages that has received a substantial amount of attention is the sex of the message-source. A separate yet complementary stream of research examines persuasion via the transportation-imagery model (TIM) which posits that in narrative contexts, persuasion occurs as a function of an individual being “transported” into the narrative world. The present study brings together these disparate literatures to assess the potential interplay of viewer sex and the sex of ad characters as wel...

Research paper thumbnail of Why Dream Teams Don't Always Succeed: Team Cohesion and Success

Research paper thumbnail of Attitude–behavior consistency, the principle of compatibility, and organ donation: A classic innovation

Research paper thumbnail of Attitude–behavior consistency, the principle of compatibility, and organ donation: A classic innovation

Research paper thumbnail of The power of the proposition: Frequency of marijuana offers, parental knowledge, and adolescent marijuana use

Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2015

Background: The frequency with which adolescents are offered marijuana has been investigated as a... more Background: The frequency with which adolescents are offered marijuana has been investigated as a predictor of marijuana use. The current study was designed to test whether the number of marijuana offers received provides an indirect path between parental knowledge and adolescents' marijuana use. Methods: Data from the nationally representative National Survey of Parents and Youth were examined. Analysis 1 tested the association between frequency of being offered marijuana and adolescents' (N = 4264) marijuana usage in the subsequent year. Analysis 2, spanning a three-year time frame, tested whether the frequency of marijuana offers at the second year of the panel study bridged the relationship between parental knowledge in Year 1 and marijuana use in Year 3. Results: Analysis 1 indicated that the frequency with which adolescents were offered marijuana predicted usage one year later, after controlling for previous usage and nine other common predictors of marijuana use. Analysis 2 revealed an indirect relationship between parental knowledge and use through the number of marijuana offers the adolescent received. Conclusion: There was a strong link between the number of offers received and adolescents' future marijuana use. Higher parental knowledge predicted reductions in offer frequency, which was associated with lower levels of marijuana use. Reducing the number of marijuana offers an adolescent receives could serve as a useful focus for intervention programs targeting parents.

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