Tobacco Documents Online

1600 - SMOKER PSYCHOLOGY BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH ANNUAL REPORT

Abstract

This confidential internal research report by the Philip Morris Tobacco company studies the relationship between smoking and personality, aggression, frustration, hyperkinesis, "smoking and learned helplessness," and variations in smoking behavior when subjects smoke low nicotine cigarettes.

Fields

Notes

Other topics: smoker personality, smoker aggression, hyperkinesis, learned helplessness, acceptability, nicotine intake, low nicotine cigarettes, paper patterns, extraversion, introversion, frustration

Quotes

SMOKING AND AGGRESSION

There are three possible explanations for the observed relationship between smoking and aggression:

1) Smoking causes aggression, or 2) Aggression causes smoking, or 3) Both smoking and aggression are caused by something else.

Because smoking appears to have calming effects on at least some people, much research has been conducted into the effects of nicotine on laboratory produced aggression, occasionally with humans (jaw clenching, tolerance of shocks, and mood changes) but more frequently with animals (less rage when cat brain stems are stimulated, fewer predatory attacks by cats, fewer predatory attacks on mice by rats, decreased biting by squirrel monkeys, etc.). there is a further large body of evidence which shows that frustration often produces nonadjustive aggression when other types of response might better solve the problem producing the frustration.

Taken together, this research suggests that when frustration produced aggression does nothing to aid performance, cigarette smoking to inhibit aggression and its disruptive effects on other ongoing bheaviors may lead to enhanced performance...

...HYPERKINESIS AND SMOKING (F. Ryan and E. Gay)

Hyperkinesis is the technical name for the excessive activity which many children display. These youngsters (usually male) cannot stay still, are easily distracted, disrupt schoolrooms, lack ability to concentrate, are very careless and impulsive, often get left and right confused, have trouble reading, etc. Although a sedative would seem in order, they are better treated with stimulant drugs, today's favorite being Ritalin, which has the anomalous effect of quieting them down.

Depending on which expert is consulted, between 5 and 30% of primary school children may show the syndrome. They appear extraverted, antisocial, impulsive and more controlled by external events than internal ones.

To the extent that smokers' personalities and life styles differ from those of nonsmokers, Dunn (1973) has pointed out that smokers are independent, antisocial, active and energetic, extraverted, impulsive, etc., and that they have more accidents, have poorer academic records, are more often male, etc.

The consequence of many of these descriptors for the two groups -- smoking adults and hyperactive children-- immediately suggests that the hyperctives may grow up to become cigarette smokers, and that the principal reason cigarette smokers appear to differ from non-smokers is that the smoking group contains most of the country's formerly hyperactive children, still showing many of the same characteristics they showed in childhood. It is furthermore tempting to suggest that in the past hyperactives adventitiously discovered that the stimulant characteristics of nicotine enables them to control some of their behavioral problems just as Ritalin does for today's children. Whether or not the nicotine suggestion is correct, the possiblity exists of accounting for some of the smoker-nonsmoker differences in terms of a hyperactive subgroup of smokers. Therefore we have been seeking a data source to provide us with a large sample of hyperactives who, at the time of their diagnosis, were too young to be smokers. We would then track these children until they reached smoking age, and compare the proportion of smokers among them with the proportion among a control group.

Althoug school system records would seem best suited for such research, local school leaders' interpretations of recent HEW restrictions on access to records, on the length of time records can be keps, and on the use of children in research without the informed consent of their parents will keep us out of school systems until the rules are rewritten.

As a second alternative, we are collaborating with Dr. Dr. Ron David, a...pediatric neurologist, whose practice involves the diagnosis and treatment of children with behavior disorders which may be linked to neurological damage. Because some suspect hyperkinesis is a symptom of a "minimal brain damage (MBD)" -- which has no other apparent effect -- he has records on a number of hyperkinetics seen in the last five years and may provide access to even more via his contacts.

As a third alternative, we are collaborating with Dr. Al Finch, the research psychologist of teh Virginia Treatment Center, where problem children of many types are housed for up to six minths wile they are trained to handle behavior problems. Many of these children are hyperkinetic, and we have access to Finch's files....In return for Dr. Finch's file access we are helping him evaluate the success of teh Virginia Treatment Center's training programs on the subsequent social adjustment of their cases. There former cases will be sent questionnaires or be queried over the phone, and a set of the questions asked will be regarding smoking behavior.

In both of these collaborations we must be very cautious not to violate a variety of ethical research codes.

Company

Philip Morris Cos., Inc.

Author

Levy, Carolyn

Ryan, Frank

Recipient

et al

Farone, W

Hauserman, M

Resnick, F

Seligman, R

Wakeham, H

Region

United States

Litigation

N/A

Operation/Project

N/A

Type

Report- Scientific

Subject

#18340 (Behavior)

Developmental Disabilities

Mental Health

Treatment