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Each year 4500 teenagers in America begin a practice which if continued reduces the life expectancy of each by about six years. In addition this practice over a lifetime will cost each thousands of dollars and hundreds of days of disability. That practice is cigarette smoking. I'm Dr. Ralph grinder professor of health education at San Diego State College and this is one of a series of programs on the smoking dilemma. Today we'll be exploring the dynamics of the development of the smoking habit. Our guest today is Dr. Richard Carney associate professor of psychology at California Western University. Dr. Carney is also president of the San Diego County Psychological Association. Not to CARNEY Everyone has some ideas on the subject of why people begin smoking. But what do we know really about the critical factors involved. What starts people smoking.
I think there are a number of things. The primary thing probably is example. So young people are surrounded by parents their peers advertising at all levels all of which present smoking as a customary ordinary normal and desirable thing to do within our national life. Normal desirable but everybody doesn't smoking a lot of youngsters don't begin. Why. Why do some begin and some don't we know anything about this. Yes I think so. I think almost everyone at one time or another. Experiments with smoking. Out of normal curiosity. This is just one of the things I see in the culture. One of the things they are tempted to do by a variety of influences I mentioned earlier and so most everyone I think is exposed to it at one time or another. But some people seem to have a need for it. But others don't. What's the
nature that need is. Well again I think that there are many needs that can be satisfied by the habit. My own research is indicated. Maybe there are some people who are biologically predisposed for this or some people who need the stimulation that they get from smoking and the particular effect that it has on their physiology. This is new this has to do with some kind of inherited predisposition I mean I just checked this is the case. Yes I call in nature perhaps. Yes and also probably the effect it has on the nervous system and theirs. I don't want to go into this in any detail today it's a highly technical subject. Also probably much more common would be such needs as the need for reassurance the need to feel like you belong. To the group that you're doing a thing that will identify you with the group that you want to identify with. You think it's pretty difficult then for a person who. Is in a social group which is largely composed of smokers to remain and have group without becoming a smoker.
Yes indeed I'd like to talk about that more later but this I think is one of the kinds of needs that are met this way another one curiously enough is the opposite of this and I so need to rebel. We need to prove one's independence and manhood and maturity frequently by rebuilding against an authority the parent perhaps or the church perhaps some authority that typically is pretty authoritarian and moralistic in its presentation of smoking. And so the young person says in effect I'll show you you don't want me to do this. I want to prove that I can do what I want to do so I'll do it. Is this related to the so-called identity needs. That is a need to feel grown up. Yes I would think it more a feeling of maturity or manliness particularly on the part of me and this is just something that grownups do. And if I want to be grown up with particularly if I want to show that oh man of mine you can't push
me around anymore. If he tells me that smoking is just something I cannot do then I'm certainly going to do it. Yeah. What about this business of gratification. Are Fine I've asked a number of youngsters why they smoke and I say it's fun. You're going to get a kick out of smoking. Well I mean it is it's something that you can identify with psychological research is gratification and they say they get from it. Yes and it's this has been one of the fascinating questions in psychological research I'm a physiological psychologist by training. And the interesting thing is that. The first response of almost everyone to tobacco smoking is revulsion. It is not pleasant but again a choke if they persist at it they get nauseated. The smell is bad. This is universal I don't think we've ever discovered anyone who presented so particularly was cigarette or cigar smoke maybe some scented pipe smoke. It had an initial
reaction that was favorable so that if you if a person says it is pleasant or favorable to him then it must have been a learned response and could have been the initial physiological reaction the person has. So the question is how do you get from this initial revulsion to the kind of addicted need in a feeling of pleasure that people report. How do you get there. Well apparently. A long history occurs as I said some people probably have the kind of physiology that addict's them to when it becomes very much like any other addiction it's a chemical physiological need that they have. It is more unpleasant not to have it than to have it. And probably more people in this simply find it so many pleasant things around it such as social approval such as the feeling of showing them that I mentioned earlier in the case of rebellion. It serves as a symbol then with so many positive connotations to the person that it overcomes the initial negative physiological response.
Do you think advertising does have an effect on the ones associations with smoking. The associations with the finer things in life success or yards are relationships. The things I've been saying I heard no secret to the advertising companies. And if you'll just look at the kind of advertising they do who do you see. Do you see the you know the kind of eminent fellow smoking a cigarette. You know it's always the hairy chested He-Man the adventuresome guy the guy that's doing something risky and unusual and adventurous. They used to have athletes this has been toned down some but if they could use athletes and get away with it they would because here's the strong dominant he man the person who's worried about this. Who needs a feeling of don't occasion with this kind of a role. This is the person now that the cigarette comes to symbolize masculinity. Are you talking about something really a weakness then a person who needs to feel more a man more sophisticated and he can't get these feelings.
High in other ways or the feelings he does get in other ways are insufficient So smoking is one way for him to help get these feelings. Yes I think this is the case and I'm not trying to imply that the person needs to be unmanly. That's not necessary it's just that he needs to be concerned about how he needs to be worried about it and. Advertising in society in general tells the Dusun individual this symbolic act of cigarette smoking is a way in which you can help identify yourself with those rules that you want to play in the culture. Do we know anything about the person out so-called personality differences between smokers and nonsmokers. I sometimes heard that smokers and young people who are smokers are more likely to be quote losers are that they're more likely to be interested in the immediate gratification of their wants rather than being able to hold off gratification. Yes I think the immediate gratification and need for immediate gratification some kind of
oral activity particularly is one of these needs that we're talking about in a lot of research on this personality variable that might enter into why a person smokes and how I have to admit that it's been pretty inconsistent and not terribly impressive. But what pattern does come out of something like this. The person has a personality that is relatively aggressive. What I sink I think of psychologists in England has called a stimulus hungry person a person who wants to interact with the world wants to have something to do with it. But. A person who is relatively inept at it a person who lacks the kind of behaviors that would be necessary successfully do this as a result he is not only oriented towards this aggressive interaction with the world but he is anxious about the outcome. And if he can have something like the symbolic cigarette to reassure him in a dignified him with the
successful adventurous people he'd like to be like then he's come a long way towards satisfying this need. It's very interesting when when do youngsters begin to smoke. How early would you say they begin typically. Well I think that this varies a lot with the opportunity the person has. Kids will go along and play it smoking probably between five and six years of age and they think this has something to do with their later development habit. I think I everyone gets exposed to it like this I said earlier the important thing is what kind of stress they put into later. The time most kids will really start to smoke is about junior high or high school age this is when the importance of being mature. I see the importance of being competent is and also the importance of belonging to a group that accepts you and gives you good surance is so if one is able to make it through those teenage years without beginning to
smoke his chances of becoming a smoker later would be reduced I would imagine reduced but there are other crisis points like when you leave home your instance when you have to go out to work and you're suddenly exposed to new influences when you enter the armed forces. And unfortunately our armed forces still in many cases have free cigarettes given you're in with your buddies you want to be one of the men want to be accepted as such if they smoke then you have to smoke. Cause what's the effect of parents do parents having to do with their young people beginning to smoke. Well this of course is the strongest influence that we find in our research. The parents have almost every influence. Two ways they can do it. As I mention one they can be a smoker them so that serves as a model sort of an ideal for the individual surround him with people who smokes reinforce the smoking behavior supplying him with cigarettes generally make him feel as one of the group when he's smoking and so on this would be might actually be a positive way. So there you go.
So are you really suggesting that parents are a key influence here and that if we're to do anything about dissuading Hector's from taking up the habit. Parents are going to have to be involved. Yes but let me finish what I was going to say things are in the negative way they can do it is by being an extreme authoritarian moralistic denounce or of the habit. And I'm afraid too many people take this approach. So how would a parent function and could you give us a little model of what parents should do ideally First of all courses not smoke. Right. But after that what the first thing is don't smoke. And if you and this is an impossible advice for many people they must smoke. I think then that if they do smoke they should tell their child. I don't like it. I wish I could stop. This is a habit that have me helpless be honest with the child be honest and open and straightforward in your education instead of moralistic tell him without being a propaganda stick about it that this is a harmful habit. This is why you don't
do it or it is so harmful and so addictive that even though you do it you can't quit. And if it's presented this way to the child this is informative. You can see the logic of it you can show and demonstrate what the ill effects are look at my teeth and smell my breath. However they say this again at 5 6 it is too early is soon as a child is interested I think certainly around 5 or 6 you want to buy candy cigarettes and encouraging youngsters to play smoking with candy cigarettes. I think that if it's possible you should. You can't hide this from a child but you should just point keep it away from them if you can't why encourage it why handed out at Halloween my kids picked up candy cigarettes and how it some body gave those to them. I'm very angry at that person. I don't know who it was. Don't do this don't do it at home don't do it at Halloween. Thank you very much Dr. Corney for meeting with us today on this issue of why people begin to smoke. It's apparent that there are many factors involved in this business of beginning to smoke. Ideally I suppose one would probably not
smoke if he lived in an environment and in association with others which excluded smoking. Maybe this is really the need and the challenge that is to reduce the social acceptability of smoking and to help. Build self concepts and relationships which are incompatible with cigarette smoking. In our next program we'll focus on the smoker and on what cigarettes apparently mean to him. You have been listening to the smoking dilemma with Dr. Ralph grounder professor of health education at San Diego State College. Dr. Richard Carney president of the San Diego County physiological Association. This program was produced by FM at the Radio Television Center on the campus of San Diego State College. This is the national educational radio network.
Series
The smoking dilemma
Episode
Development of the Smoking Habit
Producing Organization
KEBS
San Diego State University
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-2n4zmb90
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Description
Series Description
For series info, see Item 3735. This prog.: Development of the Smoking Habit. Richard Carney, Ph.D., California Western U., president, San Diego County Psychological Association
Date
1968-05-10
Topics
Business
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:14:36
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Credits
Producing Organization: KEBS
Producing Organization: San Diego State University
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-4-23 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:50
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Citations
Chicago: “The smoking dilemma; Development of the Smoking Habit,” 1968-05-10, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-2n4zmb90.
MLA: “The smoking dilemma; Development of the Smoking Habit.” 1968-05-10. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-2n4zmb90>.
APA: The smoking dilemma; Development of the Smoking Habit. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-2n4zmb90