Industries justify harmful products by magnifying their psychological benefits

Evidence

The tobacco industry not only stressed the benefits of smoking but also warned of the dangers to mental health of quitting smoking: It is a reasonable inference that the mental health of the smokers would be even worse if they were deprived of smoking. Professor I. Mills (University of Cambridge) has pointed out that underlying depression can be masked by the increasing level of arousal and many subjects resort to this mechanism to cope with depression. Smoking would appear to be one method of sustaining high levels of arousal. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1642

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Cooper’s social-conservatism argument about how groups rationalize their own interests; the industry’s benefit-distortion is the corporate analogue of individual moral disengagement.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1642