Smoking is bad! Few ideas have achieved such a consensus: Today, everybody agrees that smoking is deleterious to health and damaging to the self and others. Antismoking campaigns promulgated by health authorities and health-related organizations are frequently considered effective and valuable. Their influence is thus of considerable interest for social influence researchers, who have long been interested in the way people's attitudes and behaviors are shaped by social influence from expert source s. Furthermore, antismoking campaigns have indubitably contributed to the emergence of a negative reputation of smoking and smokers. Indeed, these campaigns provide cogent rationalizations for the ostracism, stigmatization, and discrimination smokers receive. However, very little research has sought to examine the influence of antismoking campaigns on smokers' reactions to their social stigmatization (Falomir & Mugny, 2004). In part to redress this neglect, we report in this chapter on a research program investigating the influence of antismoking campaigns by expert sources on smokers' reactions and, particularly, on their intention to quit smoking.

SMOKERS AS A STIGMATIZED GROUP

For a long period, smoking was associated with such positive social values as adulthood, masculinity, and intellectualism, and smokers benefited from a positive image (Escohotado, 1989). However, a large body of publications since the 1950s – documenting that tobacco consumption is related to health hazards and damages – has changed the perception of smokers and smoking (e.g., World Health Organization, 1996). A lot of countries have become increasingly interested in promoting actions, including information campaigns and governmental policies, against smoking (Roemer, 1993).

Western societies value personal autonomy and interpersonal distinctiveness. These values have substantial implications for people's comparison strategies. In western societies, the default comparison other is the individual rather than the group. People thus tend to engage in interpersonal rather than intergroup comparisons (Festinger, 1954). However, in this chapter, we argue for a two-stage model in which group status moderates this general, shared tendency. Members of high-status groups embody the values of society to a greater extent than do members of low-status groups. Hence, they emphasize individual comparisons more often than do subordinates. This status moderation is illustrated by research examples carried out in a variety of domains.

Cultural values and social comparison processes among the dominants and the subordinates

Western societies value beliefs in the uniqueness and separateness of individuals. These beliefs emphasize individualist or egocentric characteristics of the person such as independence, autonomy, achievement, and competitiveness. The prototypical western person is deemed an “independent, self-contained, autonomous entity who comprises a unique configuration of internal attributes such as traits, abilities, motives, and values, and behaves primarily as a consequence of these internal attributes.” (Markus and Kitayama, 1991, p. 224) People in western societies strive for idiosyncrasies, inner potentials, excellence, and praise interpersonal diversity. Accordingly, they tend to make comparison at the personal level rather than the group level (Snyder and Fromkin, 1980), and to confer more value on individual than collective behavior (Lalonde and Silverman, 1994).