Human Feedback Messages for Preparing for Quitting Smoking: Dataset

This repository contains 523 human feedback messages sent to daily smokers and vapers who were preparing to quit smoking/vaping with a virtual coach.<br><strong>Study</strong>Daily smokers and vapers recruited through the online crowdsourcing platform Prolific interacted with the text-based virtual coach Kai in up to five sessions between 1 February and 19 March 2024. The sessions were 3-5 days apart. In each session, participants were assigned a new preparatory activity for quitting smoking (e.g., listing reasons for quitting smoking, envisioning one's desired future self after quitting smoking, doing a breathing exercise). Between sessions, participants had a 20% chance of receiving a feedback message from one of two human coaches. More information on the study can be found in the Open Science Framework (OSF) pre-registration: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/78CNR. The implementation of the virtual coach Kai can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11102861.<br><strong>Feedback messages</strong>All feedback messages were written by one of two Master's students in psychology. The two human coaches were directed to craft messages incorporating feedback, argument, and either a suggestion or reinforcement. They were also instructed to connect with individuals by referencing aspects of their lives, express empathy toward those with low confidence, and provide reinforcement when people were motivated.<br>When writing the feedback, the human coaches had access to data on people's baseline smoking and physical activity behavior (i.e., smoking/vaping frequency, weekly exercise amount, existence of previous quit attempts of at least 24 hours, and the number of such quit attempts in the last year), introduction texts from the first session with the virtual coach, previous preparatory activity (i.e., activity formulation, effort spent on the activity and experience with it, return likelihood), current state (i.e., self-efficacy, perceived importance of preparing for quitting, human feedback appreciation), and new activity formulation. Notably, the human coaches only had access to anonymized versions of the introduction texts and activity experience responses (e.g., names were removed). Except for the free-text responses describing participants' experiences with their previous activity and their introduction texts, all of this information is provided together with the feedback messages. For the previous and new activities, we just provide the titles and not also the entire formulations that the human coaches had access to.<br>Before sending the messages to participants on Prolific, we added a greeting (i.e., "Best wishes, Karina &amp; Goda on behalf of the Perfect Fit Smoking Cessation Team"), a disclaimer that the messages were not medical advice, and a link to confirm having read the message at the end. We also added "This is your feedback message from your human coaches Karina and Goda for preparing to quit [smoking/vaping]:" at the start of the message.<br>The human coaches approved publishing these feedback messages.<br><strong>Additional data from the study</strong>Additional data from the study such as participants' free-text descriptions of their experiences with their activities and their introductions from the first session with the virtual coach will also be published and linked to the OSF pre-registration of the study.<br><br>In the case of questions, please contact Nele Albers ([e-mail]) or Willem-Paul Brinkman ([e-mail]).

本数据集仓库包含523条人工反馈消息，发送给正在借助虚拟教练（virtual coach）筹备戒烟/戒电子烟的每日吸烟者与电子烟使用者。

**研究**
本研究通过在线众包平台Prolific招募每日吸烟者与电子烟使用者，参与者于2024年2月1日至3月19日期间，最多可参与5次与基于文本的虚拟教练Kai的交互，各次交互间隔为3至5天。每次交互中，参与者会获得一项全新的戒烟筹备活动（例如：罗列戒烟理由、畅想戒烟后理想的自我状态、完成呼吸训练）。在两次交互间隙，参与者有20%的概率收到两位人类教练之一发送的反馈消息。有关本研究的更多细节可查阅开放科学框架（Open Science Framework, OSF）的预注册页面：https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/78CNR。虚拟教练Kai的实现代码可参考：https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11102861。

**反馈消息**
所有反馈消息均由两位心理学硕士研究生之一撰写。研究要求两位人类教练撰写的消息需融合反馈、论证，以及建议或强化内容；同时需通过提及参与者的生活细节建立情感联结，对自信心不足的参与者表达共情，并在参与者表现出积极性时给予鼓励。

人类教练在撰写反馈消息时，可获取以下数据：参与者的基线吸烟与身体活动行为数据（即吸烟/使用电子烟频率、每周运动量、是否有过至少24小时的戒烟尝试、过去一年内此类戒烟尝试的次数）、首次与虚拟教练交互时的自我介绍文本、过往的戒烟筹备活动数据（即活动内容、参与该活动投入的精力与活动体验、复做意愿）、当前状态数据（即自我效能感、对戒烟筹备的感知重要性、对人工反馈的接受度）以及新的活动规划。值得注意的是，人类教练仅能获取脱敏后的自我介绍文本与活动体验回复（例如已移除姓名信息）。除描述参与者过往活动体验与自我介绍的自由文本回复外，其余所有信息均会随反馈消息一并公开。对于过往与新增的活动，本数据集仅提供活动标题，而非人类教练可查阅的完整活动规划内容。

在向Prolific平台上的参与者发送消息前，我们会在消息末尾添加问候语（即“谨此致意，Karina与Goda 代表Perfect Fit戒烟团队”）、一条免责声明表明本消息并非医疗建议，以及一个用于确认已阅读消息的链接；同时会在消息开头添加“以下是您的人类教练Karina与Goda为筹备戒烟/戒电子烟发送的反馈消息：”。

两位人类教练均已同意公开这些反馈消息。

**研究附加数据**
本研究的额外数据，例如参与者对其参与活动的体验的自由文本描述，以及首次与虚拟教练交互时的自我介绍内容，也将公开并关联至本研究的OSF预注册页面。

如有任何疑问，请联系Nele Albers（邮箱：[e-mail]）或Willem-Paul Brinkman（邮箱：[e-mail]）。