Why Smokers Are Ignoring The Massive Cigarette Recall

Cognitive Dissonance, Inability to Personalize, and Faulty Risk Assessment

All Tend to Account for Dangerous Self-Destructive Behaviors of Smokers

To the surprise of some who don't know much about smokers, many Philip Morris customers are reportedly ignoring its major recall, despite warnings that their cigarettes may contain a dangerous pesticide which could cause a variety of health problems. But research on why so many people continue to smoke despite warnings of much greater health hazards including many deadly diseases may help to shed light on this apparently strange behavior, suggests Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). It has long been known that smokers are much more likely to engage in a wide variety of dangerous or self-destructive behaviors including abusing alcohol, gambling compulsively and excessively, using illicit drugs, failing to use seat belts, driving dangerously, etc. In some cases, says ASH Executive Director John Banzhaf, the cause may simply be a personality type which glorifies danger and actually seeks out risk for the thrill it provides; so-called "thrill seekers." In others especially among those in the lower socio-economic and limited-education class in which the percentage of smokers is highest part of the problem may be difficulty in understanding and appreciating dangers such as those related to smoking because they appear to be abstract, based solely upon statistics, etc.

In addition, a study by the Federal Trade Commission indicated that many smokers including even those who are well educated and can appreciate abstract risks often have difficulty in personalizing a danger or a risk to themselves. In other words, while they can accept abstractly that smoking cigarettes or using drugs may create dangers for others, they have difficulty believing or appreciating that it could actually happen to them; that they too could get lung cancer, that they too could become addicted to cocaine, etc. For such people, seeing a friend who suffered a heart attack, stoke, or lung removal as a result of smoking may finally cause them to change their own behavior, whereas statistics and articles about strangers who have suffered as a result of smoking may not.

A condition or coping mechanism called "cognitive dissonance" also apparently plays a role, suggests Banzhaf. In simplest terms, cognitive dissonance means the ability to deny or ignore the obvious when you cannot accept it, or to entertain two contradictory beliefs at the same time. For many smokers who are heavily addicted or otherwise unable to quit, it is very difficult to accept that something you do repeatedly every day is likely to kill you, as well as endanger the health of your children and other loved ones. Therefore, rather than accept the fact that he is committing slow-motion suicide and risking lung cancer in a spouse or child, a smoker may simply convince himself that all the overwhelming evidence linking smoking and tobacco smoke to diseases in smokers and nonsmokers is faulty, part of a conspiracy, etc. This is similar to the person who is unequivocally diagnosed with a fatal disease and who either refuses to accept the diagnosis, or who believes contrary to all available evidence that eating some food, taking some vitamin, or even submitting to some bizarre ritual will provide a cure.

Finally, partly as a result of a growing barrage of news reports about a wide variety of dangers, some people apparently simply give up or shut down; concluding incorrectly that virtually everything they eat, drink, breathe, or do can cause cancer or has other serious risks. In other words, faced with evidence that chemicals in everything from drinking water to peanut butter to barbecued meat can cause cancer, some people conclude that they might as well also smoke because "everything causes cancer anyway." While this is erroneous only a small number of chemicals out of tens of thousands tested have been proven to cause cancer, and in most cases the risk ranges from minute to infinitesimal when compared with smoking some people do appear to have adopted this fatalistic attitude. Actually, from a smoker's point of view, ignoring the risk of MITC in tobacco smoke which already contains benzene, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, acetone, butane, DDT, formaldehyde, hydrazine, and more than 40 other chemicals known to cause cancer makes a great deal of sense. After all, argues Banzhaf, someone willing to have unprotected sexual intercourse with an HIV-infected person probably shouldn't worry if their sex partner hasn't washed his hands or has a cold!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, June 1, 1995

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL: John Banzhaf (202) 659-4310

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