Smokers' brains biased against negative images of smoking

[Cool_Breeze]

What if the use of a product influenced your perception of it, making you even more susceptible to its positive aspects and altering your understanding of its drawbacks? This is precisely what happens with cigarettes in chronic smokers, according to a recent study by the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and Université de Montréal.

Smokers' brains biased against negative images of smoking -- ScienceDaily

 

[Roger_Lafayette]

Part of the explanation could certainly be because cigarettes 'trick' the brains of smokers," stated Stéphane Potvin, a co-author of the study and researcher at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Université de Montréal. "Specifically, we discovered that the brain regions associated with motivation are more active in smokers when they see pleasurable images associated with cigarettes and less active when smokers are confronted with the negative effects of smoking."

Fascinating.

Although I'm not surprised ... it's been known for some time that rising hemlines 'trick' the brains of investors to bid up stock prices: Hemline index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Myk]

Basically it's a study to say they're mad that smokers don't like being demonized.
What if being against a product effected your brain to make you overly critical of that product and its users so much that you do a scientific study on it to support your lunacy?

Let's do one on archers. Archers have an altered perception when shown images of archery. When shown positive images they are more receptive of them and when shown negative images they have a negative reaction.

 

[Kent C]

"The study showed that chronic smokers ANTZ have altered emotional reactions when they are exposed to negative and positive images associated with tobacco ecigarettes."

"For example, the brains of the smokers ANTZ in our study were more aroused by images that showed smoking vaping in a positive light than by images that encouraged them to stop lie. They were also more affected by aversive non-smoking vaping related images than by images of the specific negative positive consequences of smoking vaping."

 

[Roger_Lafayette]

Seems to me that any freshman who takes statistics (or for that matter, a tenth-grader with a good math teacher) should understand the difference between causal linkage and mere correlation. That's a basic tenant of all the social and physical sciences - of which public health is obviously one offspring.

I have no trouble comprehending how most of the press is completely in the dark about stuff like this (or perhaps pretends to be, for the sake of selling headlines, or more precisely: garnering ad revenues). Fine, they - or their employers - are in business to make money. I get it, nothing wrong with that.

But how exactly the peer review process goes so ridiculously far awry in this context is beyond me. It's as if conclusions which would never be accepted as legitimate in any other arena of public health or science somehow just slide right past the reviewers. I may not have any graduate education in the physical sciences, but even I know the difference between causality and correlation, and what a lousy degree of freedom is. Good grief.

 

[DrMA]

Perhaps smokers are smarter than the average Joe and can see straight thru the alarmist BS spouted by ANTZ and the overinflated negative health consequences. Or perhaps this is another one of those thinly veiled ANTZ propaganda, another opportunity to reiterate unsubstantiated alarmist propaganda.

In any case, I'm going to cite this study as a critique of the demonizing propaganda. Apparently it has lost its effectiveness and the ANTZ should stop wasting taxpayer money on the "health warning" media campaigns. Also, the defacing of tobacco packaging can stop now, again since this paper clearly demonstrates it's not a deterrent.

 

[AgentAnia]

Quoted by Roger:

Part of the explanation could certainly be because cigarettes 'trick' the brains of smokers," stated Stéphane Potvin, a co-author of the study and researcher at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Université de Montréal.

It's the ANTZ "demonic possession" theory, disguised as scientific conclusion.

DrMA:

Also, the defacing of tobacco packaging can stop now, again since this paper clearly demonstrates it's not a deterrent.

Message to ANTZ: Oops. Open mouth. Insert foot.

 

[jpargana]

Perhaps smokers are smarter than the average Joe and can see straight thru the alarmist BS spouted by ANTZ and the overinflated negative health consequences. Or perhaps this is another one of those thinly veiled ANTZ propaganda, another opportunity to reiterate unsubstantiated alarmist propaganda.

In any case, I'm going to cite this study as a critique of the demonizing propaganda. Apparently it has lost its effectiveness and the ANTZ should stop wasting taxpayer money on the "health warning" media campaigns. Also, the defacing of tobacco packaging can stop now, again since this paper clearly demonstrates it's not a deterrent.

This.

Many EU legislators have not yet realized that many smokers have GOOD SIGHT. If not even the FIRST appearance of health warnings had any measurable impact in tobacco sales, what is the point in gradually increasing the size of those warnings, already proven as innefective?

Let's think about 10-cigarette packs, for example. Those may actually help people reduce their smoking. You buy a pack in the morning, and you TRY to make it last until the next day. Willpower, and seeing an almost empty pack in the afternoon, can help smokers achieve that.

Now: do you realize that packs of 10 cigarettes are about to be banned in Europe, thanks to the new TPD?? Why? Because those packs were TOO SMALL to fit those new, oversized, INNEFECTIVE health warnings!! The small size of those packs was probably working better for smoking reduction than any billboard-sized warning... that did not keep those enlightened minds from believing they can encourage people to smoke LESS by selling LARGER cigarette packs...!

 

[RosaJ]

I admit I have not read the article. But the title brings to mind the fact that I find the anti smoking commercials offensive. Never in my adult life have I ever seen such graphic images that didn't offend not only myself as a smoker, but nonsmokers also.

As smokers we were treated as third class citizens and we're supposed to roll over and take it? I was minding my business once smoking a cigarette outside of a Michael's store in California well away from the front door, and this old man started yelling diatribes and making signs to intimidate me. He was getting more and more belligerent to the point where his wife had to come and pull him into the store. I was livid to say the least.

 

[rothenbj]

I admit I have not read the article. But the title brings to mind the fact that I find the anti smoking commercials offensive. Never in my adult life have I ever seen such graphic images that didn't offend not only myself as a smoker, but nonsmokers also.

As smokers we were treated as third class citizens and we're supposed to roll over and take it? I was minding my business once smoking a cigarette outside of a Michael's store in California well away from the front door, and this old man started yelling diatribes and making signs to intimidate me. He was getting more and more belligerent to the point where his wife had to come and pull him into the store. I was livid to say the least.

Sounds like an ex-smoker that still isn't over it.Sounds like most of the people on QSMB. They're still fighting their demons years after their "quit puffing the nicotine". That expression always makes me laugh.

 

[Katya]

This is indeed groundbreaking research!

I just realized that my brain regions associated with motivation are much more active when I watch Daniel Craig having a martini and significantly less active when I'm confronted with a picture of a cirrhotic liver.

Cheers!

 

[sebt]

What if the use of a product influenced your perception of it, making you even more susceptible to its positive aspects and altering your understanding of its drawbacks? This is precisely what happens with cigarettes in chronic smokers, according to a recent study by the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and Université de Montréal.

In other news in this issue of the No-....-Sherlock Weekly:

People Who Like Eating Cheese Also Like the Smell of Cheese, page 7
Ford Drivers Less Likely to Read Negative Reviews Of Ford Cars, page 13
Married People Notice Their Partner's Faults Less, page 19
PTSD-affected Combat Veterans Don't Like Sudden Loud Noises, page 26

This is just junk. The stuff about it happening "in the brain" is just frills, to give it a "science-y" look'n'sizzle. I mean, an article pointing out that living, liking some things, disliking others, getting used to some things but no others, having good experiences, having bad experienes, all change your perceptions - this wouldn't sound so impressive, would it? But if it's happening "in the brain".... urrgh, icky, Brains! I don't understand Brains, I let Scientists deal with that icky stuff, they must be right.

Of course what I just wrote is wrong because the subject is NICOTINE , a substance so demonic that Physicists Have Found (honest!) that it's actually made from a different kind of subatomic particles that don't exist in any other substance in the universe 8-o 8-o !!!!! It's so evil that you're allowed to say anything about it, as long as it's bad.

 

[rothenbj]

Why did I suddenly feel the need to stop at the pub at lunch?

I've noticed that I really don't vape much at home unless I'm reading negative articles about vaping. Can someone explain the psychology behind those actions?

 

[AgentAnia]

Why did I suddenly feel the need to stop at the pub at lunch?

I've noticed that I really don't vape much at home unless I'm reading negative articles about vaping. Can someone explain the psychology behind those actions?

I believe it's called the "Up Yours" reaction.

 

[hippiebrian]

I don't think cigarettes are ruining smokers' abilities to see negative ads. It's the negative ads themselves. We as a society are bombarded with such negative images on t.v. and in other media that they are useless. We tune them out.

Then there is the fact that they throw out the worst possible scenario consequences. They show the woman who smokes through her throat while most smokers, even if they never quit, will ever get a tracheonomy (spelling?). I know many, many smokers who smoked until the day they died and not a one of them had a hole in their throat. While a few did die directly due to their addiction, it was always when they were in their late 60's and 70's. Now I know if I go back to smoking it will likely kill me (6 days totally free today, woohoo!) seeing a woman with a hole in her throat or a copd patient in their 70's isn't going to stop me. Period.

 

[patkin]

Perfect explanation of why our "leader" continues plodding on the same course against the people's will. Also why my usual comment is: People don't change. Vaper, smoker, ANTZ or politician inconsequential.

 

[FourWinds]

So many factors leading to so many behavioral pathways... and other stuff too.

The thing that 'feels' correct and relevant to me is this:

Smarter People Stay Up Later, Do More Drugs and Have More Sex - Esquire

So perhaps we here are more intelligent than the conformists and good people of the world, and perhaps we have more sex toys also. It seems to me that most here have a decent bean, even some of the product fanboys. I don't know...perhaps it doesn't matter as long as we're all off the stinkies.

 

[rothenbj]

I believe it's called the "Up Yours" reaction.

Darn it, I thought it my smoker's brain that did that with cigarettes, now I have vaper's brain.