Download Factors related to addictive behavior (smoking) 110120

Biological factors related to addictive behavior: smoking
Can explain why smokers continue to smoke once they have started.
Nicotine – a psychoactive drug:
 It stimulates the release of adrenaline, which increases heart rate and
blood pressure.
 It stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain’s reward circuits,
which results in a brief feeling of pleasure. Leads the smoker to continue
to maintain this pleasurable effects + prevent withdrawal symptoms.
 It acts on acetylcholine receptors in the brain (confuses with natural
neurotransmitters) which sort of creates a baseline – and then the body
will not be in balance unless this baseline is kept (one way is to grow
more acetylcholine receptors).
Why do you recognize acetylcholine?
Because we discussed Martinez and Kesner’s study on the role of
neurotransmitters in learning and memory (1991) – rats with decreased levels
of acetylcholine had problems creating new memories.
Can this be linked to smoking – a lot of research is done to clarify if smoking is
relevant to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Some links have been found
(more smokers get AD – but these studies are questioned. More work is
needed.
Young people that start smoking is in special risk as:
 People who start smoking in childhood have an increased chance of lung
cancer, compared to smokers who begin later in life.
 It is easier for young people to get addicted as the young brain is
particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of nicotine.
 Why governments and health psychologists try to prevent young people
from starting to smoke.
Research:
DiFranza et al. 2006 showed that young people who experienced a positive
relaxation effect already after their first cigarette were more likely to become
addicted than those who did not experience such an effect (67% compared to
29%). The study was a longitudal study of 217 young people (mean age 12).
Relaxation was seen to be the biggest risk factor for being unable to stop later.
Implications: it is easy to become an addict, 91% of those who experiences
relaxation said they were unable to quit and that it might be enough with just
one cigarette.
Evaluation: self report – they were asked to recollect how they felt afterwards
(pleasing the experimenter, cognitive dissonance etc?). No cause and effect –
no explanations (group pressure, becoming part of the “cool group” – instead
of the actual nicotine in the beginning?). Only a US sample – problem with
generalizations.
Cognitive and sociocultural factors.
Let’s start with advertising: find one cigarette ad and one anti-smoking ad.
Discuss. Why are they effective? Share your thoughts with the class.
Charlton (1984) found that young smokers associated smoking with fun and
pleasure.
(Assigment – is this true now as well? Go out and ask 5 young smokers. Write
down their answers. Then do content analysis on their answers.)
Billions of dollars are spent every year by the tobacco industry to get people
smoking: - How is this done, what type of ads are the most efficient. – Product
placement vs. ads?
What factors predict smoking?
 Individual factors – attitudes, self-image. Attitudes and cognitions are
said to predict smoking behavior. A problem according to Ogden (2004)
as it takes individuals out of their social context.
 Social-learning theory – smoking is learned. Parental smoking is a big
factor predicting smoking. A number of longitudal studies in the UK (eg.
Lader and Matheson, 1991) shows that children were twice as likely to
smoke if their father smokes. Parental attitudes matters though Murray
et al, 1984 showed that if parents are strongly against smoking – the
children were up to seven times less likely to smoke.
 Peer-group pressure. A source of social identity. Cross-cultural study
(Unger et al, 2001) found that European American students
(individualistic culture) were more impressionable by their peers than
Asian American or Hispanic students (collectivistic cultures). They came
to the conclusion that in individualistic cultures creating own youth
cultures and rebellion was far more common than in collectivistic
cultures where rebellion is not tolerated (or – there is more respect…).
Read the “did you know” on p. 237 – and discuss this!
 Social Class. Estimates from 2007 show that prevalence of smoking is
related to socio-economic factors. More common among adults who live
below the poverty level.
Now: plan an answer to the question:
“Explain factors related to the development of substance abuse or addictive
behavior”