Did this really need to be STUDIED?

[guardians_song]

Smokers' brains biased against negative images of smoking

What's next? "Liberals' brains biased against negative depictions of liberalism"? "Conservatives' brains biased against negative depictions of conservatism"? "Gourmets' brains biased against negative images of food"? "Athletes' brains biased against negative images of sports"?

I like neurology and studies on how the brain behaves, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I have to wonder if some neurologists have ever interacted with human beings. People don't like to be told that pleasurable activities are bad for them, even if said activities are highly harmful? WHAT A SHOCK!

...Seriously, I expect to see "Study finds that bears frequently defecate in the woods" in the headlines any idea now. I would not put it past some Captain Obvious researchers to actually investigate that.

Comments

[lliira]

Maybe it could be used to see what negative ideas people have that aren't obvious? A kind of control group? Though if we already know the parts of the brain that "light up" when shown negative images, I guess we already know that...

Idek. Maybe the article is oversimplifying, and the actual goal of the study is to see what parts of the brain are directly responsible for addiction and how they react. The researcher's quote about how smokers keep smoking because they feel good about it does not give me hope that they understand anything about addiction, though. Also, 30 people sounds like a very small study.

[guardians_song]

I have the unfortunate feeling that the article's title is indicative of the actual findings. Addiction studies tend to come right out and talk about the pathways and brain activities involved. This one... not so much. :\

Also, 30 people sounds like a very small study.
It is, but it's oddly not that rare a sample size for these minor-topic neurological studies. Maybe it's all the people they can recruit and test on their limited budget? I don't know.

[lliira]

There were also studies quite a while ago that show that everyone responds very poorly to many anti-drug messages. The "this is your brain on drugs" ads that were everywhere when I was a kid, with the brain as an egg being fried or smashed or etc., are the most notorious for this. Along with the D.A.R.E. program being found to actually make kids more likely to try drugs. So I really don't know what the heck the point of this study was.