Models of Addictive Behaviour - Smoking

Models of Addictive Behaviour - Smoking

1. LEARNING

   • Initiation
     • Social Learning Theory
       • Watch a role model smoke and see them feel more relaxed and thier popularity increase - you undergo vicarious reinforcement - imitate their behaviour to gain the rewards
         • Duncan: exposure to peer models increase the liklihood that teenagers will begin smoking
         • Hanewinkel: teens that had seen smoking in films were more likely to smoke after one year than those who had not
     • Operant Conditioning
       • When you smoke you are positively rewarded with a dopamine rush and feel relaxed - positively reinforced - unconsciously encouraged to repeat the behaviour
   • Maintenance
     • Classical Conditioning
       • Over time an unconscious association formed between what is around you when you smoke and the rewards of smoking - acts as a trigger
         • Hogarth: amount of craving for a cigarette increased significant when a conditioned stimulus relating to smoking was presented to the smoker
         • eg. Normally smoke when you go to the pub - going to the pub will act as a trigger
     • Operant Conditioning
       • When you smoke you are positively rewarded with a dopamine rush and feel relaxed - positively reinforced - unconsciously encouraged to repeat the behaviour
   • Relapse
     • Operant Conditioning
       • Strong withdrawal symptons - feel uncomfortable - punishment - smoking makes it go away - negative reinforcement
     • Classical conditioning
       • Over time an unconscious association formed between what is around you when you smoke and the rewards of smoking - acts as a trigger
         • Eg. its your lunch break at work when you would normally smoke - acts as a trigger
         • Hogarth: amount of craving for a cigarette increased significant when a conditioned stimulus relating to smoking was presented to the smoker

2. COGNITIVE

   • Initiation
     • Self Medication
       • Smoke to treat psychological symptoms - perceived as dealing with the problem - mood regulation reduces stress
     • Theory of Reasoned Action
       • Behaviour an interaction of norms and attitudes - not equally weighted - combined to create behavioural intention - attitude: it'll help me lose weight - norms: its cool = smoking
         • Conner et al: behavioural intentions were generally a good predictor of later smoking
         • Guo: 14,000 Chinese students - TRA was a useful predictor of later smoking - cross cultural validity
   • Maintenance
     • Self Medication
       • Irrational beliefs eg. I can stop whenever I want, it's only one more
       • Beck's Vicious Cycle - become dependant on addiction to cope with their problems - leads to more issues eg. financial - more stressed - repeat behaviour
     • Theory of Reasoned Action
       • Behaviour an interaction of norms and attitudes - not equally weighted - combined to create behavioural intention - attitude: i'll never get lung cancer - norms: its cool = smoking
         • Conner et al: behavioural intentions were generally a good predictor of later smoking
         • Guo: 14,000 Chinese students - TRA was a useful predictor of later smoking - cross cultural validity
   • Relapse
     • Self Medication
       • Faced with stressful situations again and remember perceiving smoking to help - believe you can have one last one - smoke to solve problems
         • Kreek et al: recovering heroin addicts given drug to test stress system - ACTH levels rose x2 as the normal due due to their prior use of herion making their system hypersensitive
     • Theory of Reasoned Action
       • Behaviour an interaction of norms and attitudes - not equally weighted - combined to create behavioural intention - attitude: it' only one more - norms: its cool = smoking
         • DeVries: smokers who perceive smoker to have more benefits and smoking to have relatively few are more likely to relapse

3. BIOLOGICAL

   • Initiation
     • Smoke first cigarette and the nicotine attaches to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in the VTA - creates an action potential - activates nucleus accumbens - dopamine released - feeling of reward
       • Di Chaira - studies on rats show that nicotine stimulates dopamine transmission in specific brain areas - in particular the nucleus accumbens - effects of nicotine resemble rewards such as food and sex
     • A1 allele of DRD2 - deficit of dopamine - under rewarded - seek experiences to stimulate meslimbic system - smoking provides a disproportionate reward
       • Carmelli: MZ twins had a significantly higher concordance for starting smoking than DZ twins
   • Maintenance
     • Number of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors needed to trigger an action potential increase - down regulation - tolerance of nicotine - smoke more to get the reward of dopamine
     • Those with the A1 allele of the DRD2 gene do not have enough receptors and suffer a deficit of dopamine and are under rewarded - as smoking stimulates the mesolimbic systems and provides a disproportionate reward the behaviour is maintained
       • Carmelli: MZ twins had a significantly higher concordance for maintaining smoking than DZ twins
   • Relapse
     • No smoking = no reward - lower than normal dopamine levels - physical dependancy on smoking - smoke again to raise dopamine levels
     • Those with the A1 allele of the DRD2 genes will be under rewarded again and need their mesolimbic system to be stimulated
       • Carmelli: MZ twins had a significantly higher concordance for quitting smoking than DZ twins
   • Ming: Gender differences