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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  54
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.
The most appropriate title for this passage would be______.
选项 A、Can Carrot or Stick Better Help Smokers Quit?
B、Is Smoking Cessation Programs Effective in CVS?
C、Is Pure Rewards Group more Popular than Part Penalty Group?
D、Can Traditional Smoking Cessation Treatment Lead to Better Health?
答案A
解析 主旨题。根据题干关键词定位到全文，尤其是第一、二段。第一段首句“想让吸烟者戒烟，是对戒烟成功大加奖励还是对戒烟失败小施惩戒，哪个更加有效?”是全文的主题句．说明了下文进行研究的原因；第二段首句借用斯科特·哈尔彭博士的比喻“胡萝卜加一点大棒的效果比纯用胡萝卜更好”进一步对戒烟话题展开阐述，“胡萝卜”指“奖励”，“大棒”指“惩罚”，故A项“奖励还是惩罚，更有利于戒烟?”为正确答案。B项“CVS药店的戒烟方案有效吗?”、C项“纯奖励组比部分惩罚组更受欢迎”和D项“传统戒烟疗法能改善健康吗?”均偏离主旨，不能做文章题目，故排除。
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