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haps even more often — "It calms me". And why should an already aroused, excited 

 person seek further physiological arousal? 

 Summarizing the known facts pertinent to the question of motivation: 



(1) Smoking is relatable to personality variables. 



(2) Smoke irihalation induces documented physiological responses similar to those 

 induced by emotional arousal. 



(3) Smoking rate varies as a parabolic function of body activation level. 



I will end this presentation by summarizing the two major theoretical expla- 

 nations proposed at the St. Martin conference. We shall see how each attempts to 

 cope with the Nesbitt paradox. 



The first is that of Hans Eysenck. To appreciate his explanation of smoking, you 

 must sit still for me to give you a skeletal outline of his theory of personality. 

 Eysenck contends that there are two major dimensions of personality. He uses the 

 poles of the dimensions to label them: extroversion-introversion and neuroticism-sta- 

 bility. He states that the evidence shows no relationship between smoking and the 

 neuroticism-stability dimension. There is, however, abundant evidence of a relation- 

 ship between smoking and the extroversion-introversion dimension. His explanation 

 for smoking proceeds as follows: Under identiced external conditions of low-sensory 

 input, extroverts will have a low level of cortical arousal and introverts a high level 

 of cortical arousal. For every individual there is an optimum level of arousal. Since 

 arousal varies with the level of sensory input, one can visualize as in Figure 1 the 

 relationship of sensory input and hedonic tone, or sense of well-being. It can be seen 

 that, in these terms, too much stimulation is to be avoided, and also too little. Intro- 

 verts and extroverts require different levels of input for optimum arousal; the extro- 

 vert needs more, the introvert less. Extroverts will become stimulus seekers, intro- 

 verts stimulus avoiders. Drugs are used to alter the level of sensory input. Nicotine 

 is also used to alter the level of sensory input. Now we shall see how he resolves 

 the paradox: He acknowledges that nicotine has an arousal. Activating effect, and 

 reasons that extroverts therefore should smoke more than introverts. And happily 

 this is true. But what now does he do with his smoking introverts? Surprisingly, 

 ^ he does not attempt to resolve the Nesbitt paradox. He invokes it, pointing out that 

 nicotine can have both arousing and sedating effects. He cites the well-known 

 biphasic action of nicotine as documented by neuropharmacological research. At low 

 concentrations, nicotine activates neursd function, at high concentrations, it de- 

 presses neural function. 



Two serious flaws in Eysenck's reasoning must be pointed out: 



(1) The neuropharmacological evidence for the biphasic action of nicotine is based 

 upon observations of neeural tissue response to the local application of nicotine in 

 animal studies. Stimulation occurred at low concentrations of nicotine, depression 

 at high concentration levels. It is absolutely impossible for the concentration level 

 required to induce neural depression to be attained by means of smoke inhalation. 



(2) To postulate both activating and sedating effects is to defy the documented 

 universality of the activating physiological effect of smoke inhalation. 



Eysenck, then, has not dealt effectively with the Nesbitt paradox. And I would 

 remark in passing that the theory of Svlvan Tomkins, widely acclaimed in some cir- 

 cles, suffers from the same criticism. Tomkins has proposed that there are different 

 types of smokers each type seeking different effects from smoking. Tomkins, too, has 

 chosen to overlook the universality of smoke-induced physiological arousal, agreeing 

 with Eysenck that smoking can be either arousing or sedating, depending upon the 

 person and the situation. 



The second theoretical explanation from the St. Martin conference is that pro- 

 posed by Professor Schachter, whom I have already mentioned for coining the 

 phrase ' the Nexbitt paradox". Schachter offers an ingenious resolution of the para- 

 dox, and an explanation of smoking which you will most certainly find novel and 

 possibly noncredible. Again you must first be briefed on Schachter's theory covering 

 all kinds of affective or emotional experience. 



The bodily arousal accompan)ring emotion is the same for all emotions: fear, 

 anger, joy, etc. The person interprets the bodily emotional state in terms of the cir- 

 cumstances under wnich the emotion is experienced. Sometimes there are faulty in- 

 terpretation. These can be dramatically demonstrated in a laboratory setting. An ex- 

 ample: A male college student is given adrenaline without his knowledge and under 

 pretext that makes nim unsuspecting. All this takes place in the presence of a very 

 attractive female lab assistant. At about the time that the adrenaline begins to take 

 effect the young woman crosses her legs provocatively and lets her hand linger a 

 bit too long on his arm. The subject invariably interprets the adrenaline-inofuced 

 arousal as an erotic arousal and behaves accordingly. The lab assistant threatened 

 to quit if the experiment were to continue. 



