In the search to explain why some people become addicted while others don’t, one answer has been that some people have an addictive personality i.e. they are just more likely to become addicted. Support for this idea comes from the phenomenon of ‘addiction transfer’, described in a recent article by Samantha Murphy in the New Scientist […]
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Why do people carry on smoking, and why is stopping smoking so hard to do? An internal locus of control is when people feels in control of themselves, they feel they can and do affect their own lives, make their own decisions and so on. An external locus of control is where people feel they […]
Read moreThose of you studying addiction might be interested in a new blog produced by Dr. Mark Griffiths, who is Professor of Gambling Studies at the Nottingham Trent University, and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit. He is internationally known for his work into gambling and gaming addictions, as well as writing about many different kinds […]
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New research suggests that media representation of smoking does influence teenagers to take up the habit. Dr Andrea Waylen and her team at Bristol University examined 360 of the top US box office films released between 2001 and 2005, including those (such as Bridget Jones Diary) that depicted smoking. They found that teenagers who watched […]
Read moreOne of the explanations for addiction is that some individuals have a biological predisposition because they inherit a particular form of dopamine receptor gene (if you want an explanation of dopamine receptor genes see second paragraph). An interesting link has been made between these genes and evolution. The argument goes that the dispersal of our […]
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