Premium
‘You get the nicotine and that in your blood’—constructions of addiction and control in women's accounts of cigarette smoking
Author(s) -
GILLIES VAL,
WILLIG CARLA
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1298(199709)7:4<285::aid-casp407>3.0.co;2-n
Subject(s) - addiction , promotion (chess) , discourse analysis , cigarette smoking , relation (database) , social psychology , nicotine , psychology , health promotion , nicotine addiction , tobacco control , sociology , control (management) , gender studies , developmental psychology , public health , medicine , psychiatry , political science , linguistics , nursing , philosophy , management , database , politics , computer science , law , economics
In this study discourse analysis was used in order to gain a greater understanding of the multiple meanings that women smokers attach to cigarette smoking. The discursive constructions used by women to explain and justify their smoking behaviour were identified by analysing the transcripts of four semi‐structured interviews. All respondents framed their accounts of cigarette smoking within a discourse of addiction, reflecting the prevalence of this construction within the disciplines of medicine, psychology and health promotion. The deterministic and disempowering implications of this discourse are discussed in relation to the subsequent identification of constructions of control and self‐regulation which were utilized by most of the respondents. This article also discusses the significance and implications of these discursive constructions to health promotion efforts. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.