Behavior Of Smoking And The Social Implications That Contributed To Encouraging This Behavior - Essay Example

Assignment 4 Example 2 During the of my research I came across an interesting paper that discussed the increasingly common behavior of smoking and the social implications that contributed to encouraging this behavior. In this research Poutvaara, 2007, talks about how active smoking is now a major cause of health problems and a advanced death. Also the implications of second hand smoking are also grave though comparatively lesser dangerous which brings to attention the fact that active smokers are responsible for bringing forth a grave negative externality on non-smokers through their smoking habits and their social interactions.

The paper then speaks in detail about the correspondingly stricter regulations related to tobacco and smoking policies over the years which aim to address and prevent involuntary passive smoking. Moving towards what really appealed to me regarding this research was the fact that it examines the social interaction between non smokers and smokers when viewed as a sequential game, which incorporated elements not only from social psychology but also experimental economics which then lead to the formulation of an economic model for smoking.

This model formulates on the notion that social norms have a great impact on the behavior of individuals and hence non smokers are socially pressured for most of their part in being unable to demand that smokers cease to smoke and are therefore left with no choice but to stay with them. So basically smoking is grudgingly accepted mainly due to the presence of the common consensus that smoking is a social norm; one that is highly unaffected by the introduction of smoking and non smoking zones and therefore the paper concludes by stating that the problem at hand can only be controlled through the use of stricter bans.

References Poutvaara, P. (2007). Smoking and Social Interaction. Discussion Paper No. 2666. March 2007. Retrieved from: http://ftp.iza.org/dp2666.pdf