How Smokers Think about Death
Graphic Warnings May Not Work
Smoke, Choke, Croak: Any Questions?
2012 Required Graphic Cigarette Labeling
In the first major change to Cigarette packaging in a quarter-century, the Food and Drug Administration will require graphic Warning Labels that cover half a package's front and rear and the top 20% of all Cigarette ads. The U. S. will join dozens of nations around the world in labeling cigarette packages with large photographs of diseased organs, amputated limbs and other gruesome images. By Oct. 22, 2012, manufacturers will no longer be able to distribute cigarettes for sale in the United States that do not display the new warnings, which will be updated as needed.
People to be Reminded of Their Own Mortality
The labels will feature either drawings or photos illustrating graphically the dangers associated with smoking and will be accompanied by text stating that smoking is addictive or that it kills. Previous research has indicated when people see images of cigarette-induced ailments; they are reminded of their own mortality. However, a study presented in May annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science suggests reminders of mortality might not always have the desired effect.
Grim, Ugly Pictures
The pictures feature such things as a diseased lung, a corpse, and a man smoking a cigarette through a tracheotomy tube. They are not quite as grim as some used in other countries, but regulators hope they will be sufficiently frightening to keep young people from beginning to smoke and to strengthen the will of those who are attempting to quit.
Does this kind of approach works when it comes to actually getting people to stop smoking? (Some research suggests it may be counterproductive for certain smokers.)
May Not Have Intended Effect
James Arndt, a psychologist at the University of Missouri, had students smokers complete questionnaires designed to induce either thoughts of their own mortality, or thoughts about failing an exam. Then the researchers offered the students a cigarette and measured every person’s smoking intensity – each puff’s volume, flow, and duration. Students who did not smoke often smoked with less passion after being reminded of their own mortality, as compared with the light smokers who read about failing an exam. As Arndt explains, the infrequent smokers may have been responding to thoughts of death by trying to reduce their own vulnerability. But heavy smoking students reacted to thoughts of death by taking even heavier drags on their cigarettes. Arndt suggests the students might have been subconsciously attempting to dispel a negative mood with an enjoyable activity.
Other researchers also suggest regulators may want to rethink this ashes-to-ashes theme. New research by Jochim Hansena, Susanne Winzelerb and Sascha Topolinskic
New York University, Department of Psychology, suggests that, for a certain set of smokers, those allusions to death may actually increase the likelihood they will light up.
Terror Management Theory
When the death makes you smoke: A terror management perspective on the effectiveness of cigarette on-pack warnings…
Based on terror management theory, the present study investigates the impact of mortality-salient warnings on cigarette packages compared to warnings with no mortality threat. Results suggest that to the degree that smoking is a source of self-esteem, later attitudes towards smoking become more positive if the warning message is mortality-salient. On the contrary, if the warning is terrifying but not mortality-salient and relates to the source of self-esteem, smoking attitudes become more negative with higher smoking-based self-esteem. Thus, mortality-salient warnings may increase the tendency to favor smoking under certain circumstances. This fatal ironic effect highlights the importance of a risk communication that matches the self-esteem contingencies of the recipients, and it has urgent implications for health care policy.
Therefore, graphic warning labels on cigarettes might not have the intended effect on everyone who sees them.
Related Article:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Smoke-Choke-Croak-Radioactive-Cigarettes
Smokers: Help or Hurt Stop Smoking?
Comments
I think so many people - especially young people - are fatalistic about the future of the world today, anyway that the idea of guarding health seems insignificant. Good info! Voted up and interesting! :)
smokers know the dangers - the warnings can end up being patronizing to them, the ostracization from public places makes smokers feel like lepers and social pariahs so they get stressed out and need their nicotine more - it's counter-productive
I think Dahogland made a valid point - if people know what the effects of cigarette smoking can be they would perhaps think twice about starting. Once started it is very, very difficult to stop.
I have seen too many people die from the completely unnecessary effects of tobacco smoke, and the deaths they died were horrible, painful and undignified.
The question of freedom raised by onegoodwoman have to be balanced with the public health issues. The effects of smoking on public health are well known, as are the effects of riding a motorbike without a helmet or driving a car without a seat belt. Doing these safety things seems to me a small price to pay for the benefits to oneself and others. The degree of infringement of rights is negligable compared with the benefits.
Safety is promoted by for example not drinking and driving. Is it an infringement of rights to stop people driving under the influence? Or talking, or even worse, texting, on cell phone while driving. I can choose to do these things but then I have to be accountable for the consequences, which might include someone else being killed.
As for the awareness of one's own mortality, I think that is a very important issue which somehow the religious people try to deny - accept this or that teaching and you will live forever. That is a lie - no-one lives forever and we should all be aware that we are mortal. The unreal hope of immortality is deadly. Whether or not these warnings will help us stay aware of our mortality I don't know. I do know that the effects of smoking, like the other dangerous things, should always be kept in people's minds somehow.
Thanks for sharing this important Hub.
Love and peace
Tony
It no doubt won't
I agree smokers are not going to be helped by such images and it's just mean as those who love smokers will be more affected and alarmed as they worry about their loved ones who smoke enough already. Smoking is a tragic addiction and that's the real problem, why can't it just be tobaccoo without all those dreaded chemicals added? Good topic, well done!
I think also that people get used to seeing the warnings and scary pictures and just do not register them anymore. Also we all think that things can never happen to us, so will just push any uncomfortable facts away and not really process them. Interesting hub
Great Hub... I am a big smoker until now and I am holding my ground in eradicating it... Dependency on cigarettes is uphill battle.
Indeed it is more of psychological and self esteem and grim warning will not work.
Thanks for the share my friend...
Until they ban smoking and take cigarettes off the shelves people will smoke. Even if they do take them off the shelves, people will seek cigarettes off the street. If the government truly wants people to stop smoking they will stop wasting time and money on rediculous ads and cigarette packaging and warnings and put that money toward a free stop smoking program. I have smoked for over twenty years, have tried to stop with the help of nicotiene gum and pacthes, nothing worked. I'm sure the majority of people would stop if there was a free way to do so. No one wants to die a horrible cancer related death, but for smokers who have smoked for years the pictures won't help. I will smoke even if they put a dead person on the pack and tell me I WILL die if I smoke. I am addicted and no picture can change that. I will research further to find out just how much money has been wasted by the government on signs and packaging mandates etc to see if in fact they could have taken that money and created a stop smoking program available for the pubic. Stop smoking aids are exensive and low success rates. As a regular financially struggling citizen, I am going to spend my 6 dollars on a pack of cigarettes and not fifty (or more) for a stop smoking aid that won't work and I'm back at the store shortly after to get a pack anyway.
My point is that scary pictures and warnings will not work. It has been a fact for a long time that cigarettes cause cancer along with a list if other health issues. It has not chaned. Honestly, I think warnings are a blind attempt to show that governing bodies are trying to do something and prove that they are worth their paychecks. I'm sure we have all done something at work to make it appear that we were doing something when all the while we were doing nothing at all.
This is actually very good information to me. I am very interested in tobacco and smoking cessation, and while the findings make sense, I would not have thought of that. Please visit my website to learn more about how to educate people about the dangers of tobacco: www.tobaccofreesj.com
Interesting information
Thanks
I am always amazed to see that governments allow the legalization of cigarettes.
Doctors I teach English to say when tax revenues from cigarettes sales are compared to the cost for cigarette related illnesses to the government for health care, the payoff isn't worth it.
Hi Dallas, great informative article giving both sides. Of course, it would help if the cigarette company would stop adding the chemicals to nicotine which is even worse than the nicotine itself. My dad died from the effects of smoking, so I am completely against cigarettes and smoking, we call them death sticks in our home.
Dallas, very interesting insight on this topic. I always wondered about the extent of the effects of such adds, vs. people really quitting smoking.
Like most of you have said no one can change the mind of the smoker but the smoker. England has had these labels on cigarettes for some time now, however you can also get fake stickers and packet holders with joke labels and pictures to cover them. These fake ones look 'cool' the others tend to put a few off. I have noticed that slightly more of the teenagers in the area see smoking as being ridiculous because you can't do anything. I don't know about the US but here smokers can't smoke inside except their own homes and personal vehicles and are left with being completed separated from those around them most of the time, this more than the pictures seems to put people off. Also children are taught in school as young as six about the devastating effects of smoking the kids come out and demand the parent stops and the child uses the pictures and phrases on the packets as back up, who can blame them. Great hub.
Oh my dear friend you MUST read my hub, are people still smoking...OMG yes please do for me. This is excellent and now the young people are picking it up again, this battle moves up and down based on a new generation and I think they are making them more addicting to keep that momeny coming it. Excellent hub, rate up up thank you
I have to agree with onegoodwoman. But yes, perhaps the negative promotion on packets of cigarettes may be a successful doctrine. The rebel without course, will, of course, not be indoctrinated. Please do not stop advocating the dangers of nicotine addiction. Then, at the end of the day, nobody dying because of smoking will enjoy half a chance to blame anybody else but himself/herself.
I don't know if I would have started smoking if things were like they are today. Back in the 1950's it seemed that most men smoked and it was accepted. It was a custom in the military."the smoking lamp is lit" was the announcement for a break.
I haven't smoked since the early eighties and it has affected my health,but quitting was not an easy thing to do. Now there is much more aid in order to do that.
Perhaps " my passions" took hold, and I ran free........
I thank you for your indulgence.........my
voice on YOUR hub.
A friend, that I will not hold in disregard......
Feel free to come to me, in your time.......when you too, must speak........
You shall have voice on my forum..
Dallas93444,
I hold you and your opinion in high regard.........we could debate for hours.........this is exactly what our congress and representatives do.
I am a proponent of: simply stating:
This is what we know:
These are the known consquences:
take this, and make your choices.........
if my neighbor wishes to smoke, drink, drive fast, hold his own head under water...........let him.
It should be he, who understands, at your own peril. Taxpayers are not responsible.
As I said, I do not promote smoking......or many other things..........if you so choose............YOU pay the consequences.
I do not trust a government, that tells me, it has my own interest at heart, and then asks me for ID.
It seems unfair to me, and quite frankly, a lie.
though, I am not a smoker, I know many who are.........they most always ask for permission to smoke in my presence.
Most times it is granted, but when I have said, " my little child is in the room with nowhere to go"..they have excused themselves to the outdoors.
I do not promote smoking.....NOR do I hold smokers responsible for all modern illnesses or pollutions.
It is not fair to think that because someone enjoys a cigarette, that they are the cause of the ills of society.
Sometimes alcohol is a factor in traffic accidents. Such accidents occur even when alcohol is not present.........so, we can not say, "alcohol causes accidents",only that it sometimes contributes...
Would we DARE to say such a thing of a beef eater? A Mongo dancer? A bus driver? An airline pilot?
Like most people, the government, takes the path of least resistance. Today, the target seems to be smokers.
While it may indeed be a nasty and determinal habit, smokers themselves, as I know them, are not "hooligans"........most have been respectful of my wishes. That is all that can be asked of any neighbor.
My friend, I do not wish to argue with you.........merly, to explain my voice.
Smoking is probably the most addictive substance on our planet,everyone knows it causes death yet the governments of our world promote and encourage it simply for tax revenues.
It's there cash cow they won't legalize weed, why? possibly because it would lag far behind in the revenues generated in tax dollars, medications and doctors wages to try to save people who are dying from cancers related to smoking tobacco.
Marijuana has not proven to kill anyone compared to tobacco. It's all about MONEY and greed, tobacco will always be grown and made available to the world, it's all part of the BIG plan to eliminate people and reduce population.
So smoke yourself to death, the governments want that:0)) Great Hub and it didn't even go up in smoke...
I would never profess that smoking is not dangerous to your health!
Having made that clear, I do see 'smoking' as a modern day 'witch hunt'. Smokers have become an easy target for blame.
Is it REALLY the fault of my smoking neighbor that my child has an earache? Really, I grew up in a non-smoking home and was plagued with earaches.
Is it REALLY the fault of smokers that air quality is non-existant in some communities? Really, what about the smoking autos, the city infernos, the buses, the airplanes?
We all know of someone who never smoked and has a type of cancer........we all know of someone who smoked for decades and died of old age.......
I have seen auto crashes, mangled limbs, I once even saw a child being placed into the 'body bag'.....it cost me my lunch and then my dinner...............STILL, I like to shift gears, feed the fuel and feel the power!
People will be people and we will do the things we either like or enjoy. The government can not change that. There will be those who take risks.....in the water, on the snow slopes, on the ball fields, in the autos or with a pack of smokes.
I recently returned to my home state, and learned of a law: No smoking in your car if there is a child under the age of 7 aboard............great go ahead and protect the children.....what about the 8 year old, or the 16 year old...........aren't they worthy of lawful protection?
It all tells me, it is not about your health or mine.......it is about revenue.
Hi Dallas - Smoking tobacco is a hard thing to quit. For most folks, not smoking is healthier than is smoking. Here are a couple of articles that pretty much tell the whole story. https://hubpages.com/t/c451f and https://hubpages.com/t/d97e5. One deals with some lung problems and the other one speaks about tobacco's radioactivity. These things are real "hot buttons" for me, and they might be of interest to others.
Gus :-)))
I tend to agree. When people smoke, the last thing they need are government inflicted warnings on a package of cigarettes that is government sanctioned and taxed. In Canada we have the warning with accompanying disgusting photos and I know young people who purchase their cigarettes based on these warnings, such as "I'll have a pack of the heart disease/mouth cancer/impotence please." Excellent article!
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