Alex: A Case Study in Smoking, Essay Example

Today there are fewer expectations to smoke, even among rebellious teens. It is now perfectly acceptable even for working-class adults not to smoke, and there is increasing expectation that any adult will not smoke (Knox, 2014).

Alex, forty-two, missed this latter-day development. She grew up in a working-class household. Both of her parents smoked, and they divorced when Alex was ten. Her older brother, whom she deeply admired, smoked too.  She grew up imagining what brand she would smoke when she grew up (smoker’s image). She decided it would be Virginia Slims. Alex matured early and began smoking when she was twelve. Some of her friends were starting as well (expectancies) (Caltabiano et al., 2008). They all thought smoking was cool because it made them look older. Unlike some of those friends, Alex had no trouble getting to “like” cigarettes (genetics), and quickly outgrew the implied Virginia Slims mystique  (Toll & Ling, 2005), settling for money-saving, generic, low-tar/nicotine as a “safe” alternative (self-exempting belief). The other known factors of smoking such as reinforcement, both the positive sociability and the negative avoidance of social awkwardness, seduced her.

Because of Alex’s genetic predisposition to smoke, she probably would have started even if her parents and brother had not smoked, or if her friends had not. But since adolescents need to rebel and so did Alex, smoking was tailor-made for her. In Alex’s case, the above reasons for her starting (except to look older) were also the reasons for continuing, except now there is physical and psychological dependence.

Always on the cutting edge of things, Alex took note of e-cigarettes. The same social pressuress that led her to smoke in the first place has now led her to begin vaping, which she thinks makes her look younger.

References

Caltabiano, M. L. (2008). Health Psychology: Biopsychosocial Interactions (2nd Australian ed.). Milton, Qld: John Wiley & Sons Australia.

Knox, R. (2014, January 7). 50 Years After Landmark Warning, 8 Million Fewer Smoking Deaths. Retrieved from NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/01/07/260438987/50-years-after-landmark-warning-8-million-fewer-smoking-deaths

Toll, B., & Ling, P. (2005). The Virginia Slims identity crisis: an inside look at tobacco industry marketing to women. Tobacco Control, 172-180.