preview

Smoking And Smoking

Good Essays
Open Document

Part A Explanation for Problem Smoking is a habit that exists in a significant number of the global population. On the global scale, nearly 1.1 billion people practice the habit or ⅓ of the adult population. The most appropriate explanation for the existence of this problem is social learning. Many smokers develop the habit primarily due to the influence of social settings. Some cultural rituals around the world promote smoking tobacco among adults especially the men in the community (Brewer, Elwafi, & Davis, 2013). In the modernized settings, individuals will usually engage in smoking while offering or sharing a cigarette with another. This practice is used merely as a means of striking up a friendly conversation with a …show more content…

Out of the 10 cases of lung cancer deaths, 9 of them are a result of smoking. Changing this behavior is likely to bring numerous health benefits that improve the quality of life for the individual. One of the health benefits may relate to both men and women who smoke whereby quitting smoking enhances the fertility of the individual. The lining of the uterus is improved and becomes more receptive to the fertilized egg. The male sperm becomes more potent after quitting smoking than before. As a result, a couple may find it easier to get pregnant, and there is less likelihood of having a miscarriage. Program for Modifying the Behavior In amending the act of smoking, operant conditioning is depicted as a useful learning tool that uses rewards and punishments to increase desired behavior while the undesired behavior is eliminated. In the case of smoking, if only punishment or rewards are occasionally used for the unwanted and desired behavior respectively, it will take much longer for the change to take place. There are four major techniques of implementing operant conditioning to increase and decrease behavior. There is the positive and negative reinforcement for increasing behavior through positive and negative stimuli. On the other hand, there is a response cost and punishment for decreasing behavior using positive and negative incentives. The first step will include stimulus discrimination or generalization whereby the importance of context is

Get Access