The 'moral career' of cigarette smokers: A French survey

• Published in: Health, risk & society risk & society, 2007-09, Vol.9 (3), p.259-273
• Main Authors: Peretti-Watel, Patrick, Halfen, Sandrine, Grémy, Isabelle
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Careers; Cigarette smoking; Deviance; Deviant Behavior; Ethics; France; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; moral career; Morality; Public health; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Risk; risk denial; Smoking; Teaching. Deontology. Ethics. Legislation; Tobacco; World Health Organization
• ISSN: 1369-8575; 1469-8331
• DOI: 10.1080/13698570701486070

This paper aims to illustrate the relevance of Howard S. Becker's sociological model of deviance for a better understanding of contemporary adult smoking. From this perspective, one crucial aspect of smoking is smokers' ability to develop and entertain convincing rationalizations that help them to deny smoking hazards and challenge anti-tobacco messages. Several hypotheses are derived from this model and most of them are successfully tested with quantitative data from a cross-sectional survey conducted in the Paris Ile-de-France Region. As expected, most smokers agreed that smoking damages health and considered being well-informed about smoking hazards, even those who denied these hazards for themselves. Moreover, smokers' rationalizations were closely correlated to cigarette consumption and duration since smoking initiation. Paradoxically, risk denial was also stronger among smokers who have some characteristics usually considered as protective factors against smoking (especially future-orientation and importance attached to one's health). More generally, our sociological perspective leads to consider smokers' risk denial as the result of acquired cognitive skills instead of the consequences of lack of information or psychological bias. We believe it provides a promising avenue for further research.