How Operant Conditioning Can Reduce Smoking-Lauren Hamilton

How Operant Conditioning Can Reduce Smoking

Drugs are an epidemic that have been plaguing individuals for ages; however, operant conditioning could stop this never-ending addiction. Some drugs have been made illegal like LSD and heroin, but there are some like marijuana and nicotine that remain legal. Nicotine, which is commonly found in cigarettes, has been linked to respiratory diseases, cancer throughout the human body, and so much more. There has been a steady decline of cigarette use since the 1990’s, but many are still at risk of becoming addicted to the habit of smoking. Therefore, it is important to identify whether positive reinforcement or punishment (concepts of operant conditioning) can prevent an individual from smoking so that government legislators could change our drug policy to mirror whichever is more effective. An article that studied this idea was “The Euphoric Sensations of Cigarettes: Exploring How Operant Conditioning May Be the Missing Link in the Theoretical Understanding of Antidrug Policies” by Elizabeth Borkowski and Wanda E. Leal. Through experimentation, the article proved that positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment.

Operant conditioning is a term in psychology that deals with consequences that are associated with a certain voluntary behavior.  A common example of operant conditioning is of animals having to solve a puzzle or go through a maze to escape, which the scientist Edward Thorndike studied using cats in cages. In order for the cats to escape, they had to pull a cord or push a pole. Once they escaped the cats received food. Every succeeding attempt, the cats took less time to escape. The positive reinforcement of the food increased the cats’ behavior. With operant conditioning there could be both positive/negative reinforcement and positive/negative punishment. To reinforce something is to increase a behavior while to punish something is to decrease a behavior. Punishment is also closely related to a concept entitled deterrence theory. Deterrence theory has to do with the prevention of certain behavior due to fear of punishment. Punishment and reinforcement can also be described as positive or negative. The positive descriptor has to do with the gain of something like the cat food, while the negative descriptor has to do with the loss of something like good grades.  

Elizabeth Borkowski and Wanda E. Leal came up with a study that explores the effects operant conditioning may have had on past and current cigarette use. They used cigarette initiation experiences to study this with pleasurable and non-pleasurable experiences. Positive reinforcement was modeled with five pleasurable sensations from a cigarette: “pleasant sensations, relaxation, dizziness, pleasurable rush or buzz, and heart pounding” (Borkowsi & Leal, 2018). Punishment was modeled with four non-pleasurable sensations from a cigarette: “unpleasant sensations, nausea, coughing, and difficulty inhaling” (Borkowsi & Leal, 2018). The data was collected through surveys: individuals were asked to think back to their first few experiences with cigarettes. They then stated the number of pleasurable sensations they had experienced, the number of non-pleasurable sensations they had experienced, and ranked the intensity of them on a scale from zero to three (zero being not intense at all to three being intense). This was the independent variable of the study. The dependent variable of the study was the total number of days the subjects smoked cigarettes in the past thirty days. The controls of this experiment were alcohol use, marijuana use, gender, race, age, marital status, income, and college degree. All of this data was then modeled through statistics.

The results of this experiment was that all five positive initial experiences had significant effects on thirty-day past cigarette usage while only two out of the four negative initial experiences had significant effects on cigarette usage. The results also revealed trends in cigarette usage when comparing the people who had negative initial experiences with each other and people who had positive initial experiences with each other. As the number of initial feelings of pleasant sensations increased, the numbers of days smoked in the past thirty days also increased by approximately 2 days. However, as the number of initial feelings of unpleasant sensations decreased, the number of days smoked decreased by less than 1 full day. All of the positive experiences with cigarettes led to substantial increases of nicotine dependence. The negative experiences led to decreases in nicotine dependence that were less substantial than that of the positive experiences. This was most likely the result of one of the negative experiences, difficulty inhaling, having a positive relationship with dependence to nicotine. These positive experiences resemble positive reinforcement so it would appear that positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment.

Some current drug policies for young individuals are heavily dependent on punishment. A very popular program is D.A.R.E. which is known for highlighting the negative consequences for partaking in activities that are drug related. These negative consequences include death and imprisonment. However, as this study shows positive reinforcement is a lot more effective than punishment, it would make more sense if drug policies used positive reinforcement.  Medications that block transmission of drugs like nicotine to the reward signals of the brain and therapy would be good alternatives. Positive reinforcement could also be effective in the education system. Today, a great number of people struggle with school because they may have the mindset that grades are everything. When one gets bad grades on an assignment, they are being punished because it is meant to decrease the child’s lazy behavior. However, as the aforementioned experiment proved, positive reinforcement may be more effective. Therefore, it may be more effective if a child was rewarded when they succeeded.  

Figure 1: A man holding a cigarette

by Lauren Hamilton, University of Florida, Applied Physiology and Kinesiology Major

Sources:

Borkowski, E. L., & Leal, W. E. (2018). The Euphoric Sensations of Cigarettes: Exploring How Operant Conditioning May Be the Missing Link in the Theoretical Understanding of Antidrug Policies. Journal of Drug Issues, (3), 485. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022042618774838

Mellebye, Marius. (2006). Cigarette. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/mariusmellebye/123864852/in/photolist-bWQGU-955bn7-9y6zt9-9YChLZ-2Czsu-eP7M2-eP7MQ-5VhiS-hoDF-9ffyvD-4fypAr-6fW7md-4jXZBq-wYR1m-7afQKS-9LJjnT-cGtWcE-KyAQw-iM9Aw-7nRsZQ-eQ13Qq-9qirPc-fp2yr6-6EowGy-wYRe9-wYR9S-xqPSgj-6NGgwj-wYR67-wYRhr-wYR5C-6qugtQ-c3rbRW-wYR2Q-7Sds6C-Tgmbtf-dz6AdD-csy8H-aiBtg9-79DgpA-646w7n-4QkXjJ-wYR7N-XpdYqe-6JNJ1t-2NrnnT-dQtWPb-5jnunF-6igpxE-ahbVQG

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