How does removing menthol tobacco product displays at point-of-sale affect adolescents’ cigarette smoking intentions? The mediating effects of social norms

This study investigates the psychological mechanisms through which a removal of mentholated tobacco products from retail stores affects future smoking intentions among youth. Descriptive norms and injunctive norms were examined as candidate mediators. The study was conducted in the RAND StoreLab (RSL), a life-sized replica of a convenience store developed to evaluate how changing point-of-sale (POS) tobacco advertising influences tobacco use outcomes during simulated shopping experiences. Participants were assigned to shop randomly in the RSL under one of three experimental conditions that were (1) status quo condition in which all tobacco-, sweet-, and menthol-flavors were displayed; (2) tobacco/menthol condition in which only tobacco- and menthol-flavored tobacco products were displayed (sweet characterizing flavors other than tobacco or menthol/mint were removed from the display, effectively "banned"); and (3) tobacco-only condition in which only tobacco-flavored products were displayed (all sweet- and menthol-flavored products were removed). Results revealed that injunctive norms mediated the relationship between the removal of menthol cigarettes from the POS setting and increased intentions to smoke menthol-flavored cigarettes, whereas descriptive norms were not a significant mediator. These findings suggest that targeting injunctive smoking norms in public health communications may be a promising strategy to mitigate potential unintended consequences of a menthol ban on future smoking intentions for youth.