Failure of the Experiential System: The Case of Smoking

FAILURE OF THE EXPERIENTIAL SYSTEM: THE CASE OF SMOKING

Judgments and decisions can be faulty not only because their affective components are manipulable, but also because they are subject to inherent biases of the experiential system. For example, the affective system seems designed to sensitize us to small changes in our environment (e.g., the difference between 0 and 1 deaths) at the cost of making us less able to appreciate and respond appropriately to larger changes (e.g., the difference between 570 deaths and 670 deaths). Fetherstonhaugh et al. (1997) referred to this insensitivity as psychophysical numbing.

Similar problems arise when the outcomes that we must evaluate change very slowly over time, are remote in time, or are visceral in nature. The irrationality of decisions to smoke cigarettes provides dramatic examples of these types of failure (Slovic, 2000, 2001). Despite the portrayal of beginning smokers as “young economists” rationally weighing the risks of smoking against the benefits when deciding whether to initiate that activity (e.g., Viscusi, 1992), research paints a different picture. This account (Slovic, 2001) shows young smokers acting experientially in the sense of giving little or no thought to risks or to the amount of smoking they will be doing. Instead, they go with the affective impulses of the moment, enjoying smoking as something new and exciting, a way to have fun with their friends. Even after becoming ”regulars,“ the great majority of smokers expect to stop soon, regardless of how long they have been smoking, how many cigarettes they currently smoke per day, or how many previous unsuccessful attempts they have experienced. Only a fraction actually quit, despite many attempts. The problem is nicotine addiction, a condition that young smokers recognize by name as a consequence of smoking but do not understand experientially until they are caught up in it.

The process of becoming addicted appears to begin surprisingly soon after one begins to smoke. Research indicates that adolescents begin to show signs of nicotine dependence within days to weeks of the onset of occasional tobacco use (DiFranza et al., 2000). Loewenstein (1999) explains the process of addiction as being governed by immensely powerful visceral factors or cravings that, from an experiential perspective, are very hard to anticipate and appreciate:

Unlike currently experienced visceral factors, which have a disproportionate impact on behavior, delayed visceral factors tend to be ignored or severely underweighted in decision making. Today’s pain, hunger, anger, etc. are palpable, but the same sensations anticipated in the future receive little weight. (p. 240)

The failure of the experiential system to protect many young people from the lure of smoking is nowhere more evident than in the responses to a survey question that asks smokers: “If you had it to do all over again, would you start smoking?” More than 85% of adult smokers and about 80% of young smokers (ages 14 to 22) answer “No” (Slovic, 2001). Moreover, the more individuals perceive themselves to be addicted, the more often they have tried to quit, the longer they have been smoking, and the more cigarettes they are smoking per day, the more likely they are to answer “No.”

We can now address a central question posed by Viscusi (1992): “at the time when individuals initiate their smoking activity, do they understand the consequences of their actions and make rational decisions?” Visusi went on to define the appropriate test of rationality in terms of “whether individuals are incorporating the available information about smoking risks and are making sound decisions, given their own preferences” (p. 11).

The data indicate that the answer to Viscusi’s question is “No.” Most beginning smokers lack the experience to appreciate how their future selves will perceive the risks from smoking or how they will value the tradeoff between health and the need to smoke. This is a strong repudiation of the model of informed rational choice. It fits well with the findings indicating that smokers give little conscious thought to risk when they begin to smoke. They appear to be lured into the behavior by the prospects of fun and excitement. Most begin to think of risk only after starting to smoke and gaining what to them is new information about health risks.

These disturbing findings underscore the distinction that behavioral decision theorists now make between decision utility and experience utility (Kahneman, 1997; Kahneman & Snell, 1992; Loewenstein & Schkade, 1999). Utility predicted or expected at the time of decision often differs greatly from the quality and intensity of the hedonic experience that actually occurs.