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Seeing smoking in movies makes life hard for quitters
Seeing someone light up a cigarette is enough to trigger an immediate urge to do the same… if you’re a smoker, of course! A team of American researchers arranged for 17 smokers and 17 non-smokers to watch the first few minutes of the American film “The Associates”, directed by Ridley Scott.
This opening section includes numerous scenes in which cigarettes are a constant presence. However, there are no images of alcohol, acts of violence or sex. As these volunteers watched, the researchers followed their brain activity using functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).
The results showed that each time an actor lit a cigarette, activity was triggered in the smokers’ parietal lobe, but this was not the case with non-smokers. The parietal lobe is the area of the brain associated with perception and coordination. Taking a cigarette out of the packet, putting it in one’s mouth, lighting it … these are actions that heavy smokers carry out sometimes dozens of times a day. And the sight of an actor smoking appears to stimulate the same reaction in the brain as the simple intention of smoking a cigarette. So, if you want to quit smoking, it’s best to avoid watching films where people smoke … and indeed the company of other smokers.
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