The Tipping Point

Chapter 7. Case Study: Suicide, Smoking, and the Search for the Unsticky Cigarette
1.According to Gladwell, why were teens in Micronesia committing suicide at a high rate?
Teens in Micronesia were committing suicide at the rate of about 160 per 100,000. Suicide was almost commonplace, triggered by the smallest of incidents. Runinstein observed that the rituals of suicide have become embedded in the local culture. The idea is infecting young boys and the unthinkable has become thinkable.
2.What is permission-giving?
Permission-giving is when permission is given for someone else to follow suit just because someone has already done it. It gives people, especially those vulnerable to suggestion because of immaturity or mental illness, permission to engage in the act as well.
3.How does Gladwell make the connection between Micronesian’s teen suicides and teen smoking in America?
Gladwell makes a connection between Micronesian’s teen suicides and teen smoking in America by classifying them both as a contagious epidemic of self-destruction, engage in by youth in the spirit of experimentation, imitation, and rebellion. These important forms of self-expression have become a mindless action among teens.
4.What steps has our society taken to curb teenage smoking?
In order to curb teenage smoking, our society has restricted and policed cigarette advertising making it harder for tobacco companies to lie, raised the price of cigarettes, and enforced the law against selling tobacco to minors. Society has also run extensive public health campaigns on tv, radio, and in magazines to try and educate teens.
5.What does Gladwell think is wrong about the current strategies being used to stop American teens from smoking cigarettes? What strategies would he substitute as more effective?
Gladwell thinks the current strategies being used to stop American teens from smoking cigarettes is not very effective. He does not understand why we think the key to fighting smoking is educating people about the risk of cigarettes. Gladwell feels smokers are not smokers because they underestimate the risks, they smoke even though they overestimate the risk. Instead of putting the focus on these strategies, he would rather target the contiguousness or the stickiness.
6.What is the difference between “chippers” and addicted chronic smokers?
A chipper is someone who smokes no more than five cigarettes a day but who smokes at least four days a week. Their smoking patterns vary from day to day. They experience almost no withdrawal symptoms when abstaining from smoking. Chippers are not addicted to nicotine and withdrawal relief or avoidance does not drive their smoking. Addicted chronic smokers smoke soon on waking to replenish the nicotine that has cleared overnight. Although they start out as chippers, overtime they escalate. Genetic factors are thought to distinguish chippers from hard-core smokers. While chippers have the genes to derive pleasure from nicotine they cannot handle it in large doses. Heavy smokers, however, have genes to do both.
7.What were the results of the Colorado Adoption Project?
The results of the Colorado Adoption Project through the adopted kids were strange. Their scores have nothing in common with their adoptive parents. All of the results strongly suggest that our environment plays as big a role as heredity in shaping personality and intelligence.
8.What is the correlation between smoking and depression?
In 1986, a study of psychiatric outpatients found that half of them smoked. In 1988, Glassman discovered that 60 percent of heavy smokers had a history of major depression. Th same kinds of things that would make someone susceptible to the contagious effects of smoking are also the kinds of things that contribute to depression. There is also some preliminary evidence that these two problems have the same genetic root.
9.What have been the effects of Zyban on smokers?
The effects of Zyban on smokers is it lifts the mood in precisely the same way that nicotine does. While 49 percent of heavily addicted smokers given counseling and Zyban quit after four weeks, Ayban hs the least success with the heaviest smokers.
10.What are “addiction thresholds”?
Addiction thresholds are the amount of nicotine that one can take in without becoming addicted to it. Instead, it is the amount that will provide taste and snsory stimulation.
11.What are the character traits of the smoking personality, according to Gladwell?
According to Gladwell, the character traits of the smoking personality are greater sex drive, more rebellious and defiant, make snap judgments, take more risks, and are more honest about themselves.
12.Why are teenagers drawn to these traits?
Teenagers are drawn to these traits because they think it is cool. People weren’t perceived cool because they smoked, but the smoked because they were cool.
13.What are your thoughts about peer influence versus heredity and parental influence?
I agree that the environmental influence that helps children become who they are, is their peer group. While morals and values created in the home life can help define who a person it, I feel that the peers will challenge this in an individual. It is up to the individual whether or not they let the peers affect them. I also do not feel that peer influence has to be negative. The peer group can also reinforce a person’s strong morals and values.
14.Whom are you most influenced by?
I believe that I am most influenced by my family. I trust their judgement and opinion and allow it to influence my life.
15.Do you believe teens smoke because of peer pressure?
I do not believe teens smoke solely due to peer pressure. I think that this goes back, again, to morals and values in the home life. I would have felt too guilty and like I had disappointed my parents if I had even tried smoking. This does not mean, however, that the pressure was not there. I also think that it is too easy for a teen to see smoking in the home as acceptable and pick up the habit. I do, however, feel that peer pressure can easily influence a person to moke.
16.At what age do kids stop listening to their parents? At what age, if ever, do you think teens start listening again?
I don’t think kids ever stop listening to their parents. I do feel that the value or impact of what their parents have to say declines and is up against the values or impact of what their peers have to say during their teenage years. I think that this balance shifts again toward the parents during senior year in high school when the reality factor kicks in.
17.Can a safer cigarette be created.
Benowitz and Henningfield suggest that tobacco companies be required to lower the level of nicotine so that even the heaviest smokers could not get anything more than five milligrams of nicotine within a 24-hour period. This level should be adequate to prevent or limit the development of addiction in most young people. I, however, feel that cigarettes will always hold a negative connotation and therefore will never be considered safe.