How to Get 7th Graders to Smoke
15th May 2024
Some of this stuff seems a bit dated now, sure, and the video thing sounds a little creepy. But mostly it looks reasonable—couldn’t hurt, right?
Except it did hurt. Students who did the Emotion program ended up smoking more cigarettes and more weed and drinking more alcohol than students who received no program at all. Which is to say: researchers came into schools in Los Angeles and ran a drug prevention program that caused a bunch of seventh-graders to do more drugs
(Best of all, the name of this program was Project SMART.)
What about the kids in the Social program? Basically bupkis. The effects were way stronger in the Emotion program, and in the wrong direction.
Beware of sociologists bearing clipboards.