[One Idea Monday] Smoking, Role-modeling, and Growing up

Akwaaba friends,

When you receive this newsletter, I’ll be on my plane to Hanoi. I’ll be around until September 3rd, and I truly hope to see some of you ❤️‍🔥

More on that in the future, here’s 1 idea for this week.

1 Idea: Smoking isn’t cool

In a study done by Harvard Professor Viscusi, he found that instead of underestimating the negative health impact of smoking, smokers actually overestimate it. Why do people still smoke despite being well aware of the harm?

1 popular answer I usually hear is that smokers think smoking makes them “cool”.

Not convinced by this answer, Malcolm Gladwell argues in The Tipping Point that something looks cool not because of the action itself. It’s because of the association we have with the people who carry out the act.

“Smoker personality type” is found to be, by Eysenck in various psychology studies, “extroverted, sociable, risk-loving, adventurous, rebellious, impulsive, self-confident, relaxed, lacking regard for people’s opinions about oneself…”

Even though it’s a generalization, most smokers do display these traits.

Smokers aren’t cool because they smoke.
They smoke BECAUSE they are “cool”. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Public health campaigns against smoking fail because they focus on stressing the “harm” factor of the cigarette, without attacking the “cool” factor of the smokers.

They fail to realize that people don’t smoke because they think smoking is cool. People smoke because they want to be like smokers.

Now, the interesting question is: What if we apply the same role-modeling mechanism to inspire kids and teenagers to do other things?

What if we start associating “coolness” with reading and learning? What if being environmentally friendly is cool? What if helping other people is cooler than winning and punching down on others?

To encourage a behavior, negative or positive, requires a role model - a person who sends an invitation/permission to follow on the basis of “I want to be like him/her.”

Every one of us is a role model for someone: your kids, siblings, cousins, friends, students, or colleagues... Be mindful of the invitations you’re sending.

1 blog

“Be who you needed when you were younger”

I wrote this during one of the toughest periods of my life: my grandma passed away in Vietnam, with so much self-doubt in my professional life. It’s about Education and why I chose it. I hope you enjoy it.

1 quote

I think the worst question in the world is "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" because it implies that growing up is finite. ~ Michelle Obama, Becoming

Have something to say? You can directly reply to this email. It’s a more private space compared to Facebook. I’m 99% more likely to respond.

Cheers,

Akwaaba, Tung