Psychologists have also discovered that reinforcement is beneficial in helping someone to quit abusing a substance. Mestel and Concar’s study, conducted on cocaine addicts, aimed to explore the effectiveness of giving a incentive for qutting. Participants were urine tested several times a week and if they tested negative for substance abuse they were awarded with a voucher for each negative urine test the vouchers value increased in worth however, if a participant had a test which proved positive for substance abuse the voucher value returned to its starting worth. Particpants would therefore, gain the most money if they remained drug free and the campaign was shown to be largely effective. Whilst drug treatment programmes have a 70% drop out rate 85% of participants in Mestel’s study followed the programme through for twelve weeks. The study shows that reinforcement is effective in treating those who abuse substances such as cocaine.
It has also been suggested by psychologists that in the run up to giving up the use of a substance there is a five stage process defined as the spiral model of behavioural change. This five step process begins with pre-contemplation at this stage the person is not aware of a problem they may have though those surrounding them may well be. The second stage is contemplation in which a person acknowledges that their substance use or abuse is a problem and whilst they may contemplate taking action they in no way commit themselves into taking action. Following on from contemplation is preperation in which a person prepares for the action they are about to take and may for example have reduced their cigarette intake. Action is the most obvious stage, a person is said to be in the action stage if they have stopped their behaviour between one and six months. The final stage is known as maintainence and here a person works to try to avoid succombng to a relapse remaining substance free.
- Evaluate what psychologists have discovered about substance use and abuse.
In discovering about substance use and abuse one issue encountered are the inevitable ethical issues that occur. In Mestel and Concar’s study for example, sensitive data was collected. Sharing this sensitive data wit hthe researchers may have caused participants unnecessary anxiety or embarrassment if for example the urine test showed that they had used cocaine. This inevitably leads to ethical issues due to the unpleasant emotions participants may have been subjected to. Similarly in Robinson et al’s study, participants may have experienced unpleasant emotions such as embarrassment and ill ease as a result of the personal nature of the questions asked. From the two studies we can see that ethics is often a factor when exploring the issue of substance use and abuse however substance abuse is, by definition, against social expectations and consequently is always likely to incur ethical dilemmas when researchers attempt to discover substance use and abuse.
Another difficulty incurred when attempting to explore substance use and abuse is social desirability. Social desirability is the term given to the situation in which people give answers that are contrary or different to their beliefs because their alternative answer is more socially acceptable. In Moolchan et al’s study for example personal data was collected and in order to present themselves in abetter light people may have lied when giving their answer – responding by saying that their parent didn’t smoke when in fact they did for example. Similarly in Lando’s study baseline data was collected by asking participants to keep a diary detailing their smoking for one week. Participants may have recorded false information because they felt this false information would be more socially acceptable. Social desirability can lead to results which are invalid and resultantly lead to a lack of validity as the study will not record peoples true response.
Another difficulty in discovering substance use and abuse is the issue of generalisability. Generalisability is the term used to define the extent to which results from one sample of participants can be applied to wider groups. In Griffiths study for example the findings may not be able to generalised to a country such as Australia as the sample used was not representative. Similarly Murray’s study conducted in 1988 had a sample which was exclusively composed of adolescents and consequently it could not be applied to the wider population. In reality however a study is likely to never be truly representative to a global extent and in doing so such a diverse sample may make it hard for clear results to be distinguished due to cultural differences.
Research into substance use and abuse may also incur the difficulty of ethnocentric bias. This is the tendency to perceive the world from you own cultural group, such as your wthnic group. The issue of ethnocentric bias can be seen in Gomels study. Gomel looked at a workplace in which smoking had been banned and how this related to the reduction in substance use (smoking). The study can be een to be ethnocentrically biased because it was conducted in one workplace in Australia. Ethnocentric bias can result in research that is not applicable to the larger population as the results from this study may not be found to be the same if it was conducted in Australia for example.
- Many people resolve to give up smoking each new year. With middle aged women specifically in mind suggest one psychological technique which would be useful to help them in their attempts to stop smoking. Give reasons for your answer.
In attempting to stop smoking one technique which may be useful is the use of self help groups. Self help groups are support circles where each member is also attempting to quit smoking. As Moolchan discovered in his study, women who smoke are likely to be socially skilled and confident and so may find a group therapy useful where they can support and gain support from other women in the group who are in a socially similar position to themselves.
Group therapy may also be effective in helping a middle aged woman quit smoking as she may make friends with people in the group and thus turn to them for support as she would turn to a friend outside of the group. The clear difference however would be that the person in the group would be going through the same experience as the middle aged woman and so would be able to identify with her. Those in the support group may also acknowledge an element of competition each one wanting to continue to stop smoking so they remain in the group. For this variety of reasons a support group is likely to be the most effective strategy in supporting a middle aged woman who is giving up smoking.
