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  3. What would make a smoker more likely to quit, a big reward for succeeding or a little penalty for failing? That is what research

What would make a smoker more likely to quit, a big reward for succeeding or a little penalty for failing? That is what research

admin2017-01-12  51
问题     What would make a smoker more likely to quit, a big reward for succeeding or a little penalty for failing? That is what researchers wanted to know when they assigned a large group of CVS employees (CVS Caremark is the country’s largest drugstore chain by sales), their relatives and friends to different smoking cessation programs.
    "Adding a bit of a stick was much better than a pure carrot. These large employers are spending an average of $800 to $900 per employee per year, but in ways that are often blind to normal human psychology" said Dr. Scott Halpern, who led the study. The trial was intended to change that. Researchers randomly assigned the participants to a number of program options and let them decide whether they wanted to participate. The penalty program required participants to deposit $150; six months later, those who had quit smoking would get the deposit back, along with a $650 reward. In the reward-only program, participants were simply offered an $800 payment if they stayed off cigarettes for six months.
    The trial, which was described in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, was the largest yet to test whether offering people financial incentives could lead to better health. Researchers found that offering incentives was far more effective in getting people to stop smoking than the traditional approach of giving free smoking cessation help, such as counseling or nicotine replacement therapy like gum, medication or patches. But they also found that requiring a $150 deposit that would be lost if the person failed to stay off cigarettes for six months nearly doubled the chances of success.
    "This is an original set of findings," said Cass R. Sunstein, a Harvard law professor who helped develop some influential ideas in the field of behavioral economics, notably that if the social environment can be changed—for example, by posting simple warnings—people can be nudged into better behavior. "They could be applied to many health issues, like alcoholism, or whenever people face serious self-control problems."
    Over all, success eluded most of the study participants. More than 80 percent of smokers in the most popular pure rewards group were still smoking at the end of the study. Even so, researchers say, their success rate was far greater than for those who got the traditional treatment. Smoking is the largest cause of preventable death in the United States. Diseases linked to it kill more than 480,000 Americans a year. And even a small decline could have a big health effect.
It is implied from the last paragraph that offering financial incentives in the study______.
选项 A、could get the highest success rate
B、changed 20 percent of smokers
C、might bring public health benefits
D、made most participants quit smoking
答案C
解析 细节题。根据题干关键词the last paragraph和financial incentives定位到第五段。由该段第二、三句“在研究结束时，最受欢迎的纯奖励组中有超过80％的吸烟者依旧在吸烟。但研究人员表示，即便如此，他们的成功率仍远远超过了传统疗法”可知，即使纯奖励组的参与者大部分仍没戒烟成功，但成功率还是高于传统疗法，这表明提供经济奖励有可能带来公共卫生效益，故C项为正确答案。A项“可以获得最高的成功率”没有推断依据，且与文章主要内容相悖。B项“改变了20％的吸烟者”中的数字不够精准，不符合文中的More than。D项“让大多数参与者成功戒烟”与该段首句“总体而言，大多数研究参与者都没能成功戒烟”不符，故排除。
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