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Psychology Reflective Journal

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Submitted By tkm421
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Tang Ka Man 15072501D
Helping My Father to Quit Smoking in Psychological Ways
My father has been a smoker for a very long time. He started smoking since he was at college age. My family used to blame him for having this harmful habit while my father always find it difficult to quit smoking. We have put a lot of efforts to help him to be out of this dangerous hell, yet all we have done is futile. After attending psychology lessons, I could suggest some reasons on that from a psychological perspective.
To figure out the most suitable methods to help my father quit smoking, it is essentially important to know the reasons why he was addicted to smoking. Nicotine is a drug found naturally in tobacco, which is as addictive as heroin or cocaine (American Cancer Society,
2014). We can regard smoking as a kind of operant conditioning. When people have taken in even just a small amount of this chemical, they can gain pleasant feelings from it. The pleasant feeling acts as a positive reinforcer which encourages people to smoke more.
When my dad tries hard to quit smoking, the distasteful feeling from the lack of nicotine, which act as a negative punishment, prohibits him to abstain from smoking. Thus, it is not surprising that a smoker always find it hard to abandon this noxious habit, even they know this obsession is detrimental.

I have also discovered a interesting phenomenon about the smoking behavior of my dad. I found that my dad is used to attribute his smoking habit as a kind of “social smoking”, which isn’t an unhealthy behavior at all. Nevertheless, he described the teenagers who smoke as naughty guys. I guess these contradictory thoughts of my dad can be explained by “self-serving bias” and he wants to persuade himself to support his bad habit by this way. That’s why his belief of smoking would be such strong(Myers,
2015).

In order to help my dad to get rid of the smoking habit, I try to use some psychological ways to change his attitude. The negative effects of smoking are widely known. It is common for us to read the news reporting people die due to the diseases caused by oversmoking. Every time when I show my dad this kind of news, his face turns as pale as death. I know this is a kind of “cognitive dissonance” that there are conflicts between his behavior(smoking) and attitude(knowing that smoking affects health). When there is an attitude mismatch in his mind, he will try hard to do something to minimize the emotional discomfort and it is a golden opportunity for me to persuade him to change his belief to

leave smoking. During the process, I would like to use ”foot-in-the-door” technique to increase the compliance of my dad. I will first start with a small request which demands him to smoke twice a day. When my offer is granted, I would escalate it to a larger one which requests him to smoke once a day only. Thought repeated steps requesting him to smoke less, he can quit smoking eventually. If he cannot withstand the withdrawal reactions during the progress of quitting smoking, I would give him some “nicotine gums” containing a small amount of nicotine, which act as the substitute of tobacco, to provide him satisfaction(Medline Plus, 2013).

In the mean time, it is effective to help my dad give up smoking by keeping him away from any environmental that prompt him to smoke. According to the basis of “classical conditioning” suggested by Bouton(2007), the smoking behavior(conditioned response)of my dad is associated with the environment(conditioned stimulus) where he used to have smoking when he has any stress or unpleasant feeling(unconditioned stimulus). Over time, he will be accustomed to those environment and feel an irresistible impulse to smoke there. When he is forced not to smoke in those environment, there would be disassociation between the two paired conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus(extinction). The desire to smoke of my dad, will gradually diminish, or even disappear completely.

I think making good use of psychological knowledge could really help people to quitting smoking through acting against the psychological dependence in people’s mind. I hope I would be able to help my dad to stay away from this harmful habit as soon as possible.

References:
American Cancer Society (2014). Is smoking tobacco really addictive?. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/questionsaboutsmokingtobacc oandhealth/questions-about-smoking-tobacco-and-health-is-tobacco-addictive
Bouton, M. E. (2007) Learning and Behavior: A Contemporary Synthesis, Sunderland, MA:
Sinauer

Medline Plus (2013). Nicotine Gum: MedlinePlus Drug Information. Retrieved from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a684056.html Myers, D.G. (2015). Exploring Social Psychology, 7th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill
Education.

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