The latter you can imagine in all its awfulness even if you’ve never experienced it, but you can’t imagine anything like the feeling of pleasure just from a verbal description
This is also the answer to the larger question: we may suppose that a person who clearly visualizes just how bad the cancer would be will be more likely to quit smoking. This seems a fairly testable prediction, since it would imply a greater likelihood of someone quitting smoking if someone they know has suffered lung cancer as a result of their smoking. It would also imply that people instructed to vividly imagine various graphic details of themselves, diseased, every time they want a cigarette, would be more likely to successfully avoid smoking.
The difference in individuals would then quite clearly be attributable to differences in what the person was doing internally when they heard the doctor tell them to quite. Some people more vividly imagine things than others, some have better reference memories for imagining with, some have different prior probabilities for how likely they are to be sick (thus influencing their ability to “see themselves” in that state), etc.
In contrast, the pain of a fine or reproach is quite easy to imagine and is so closely associated with bans of anything that it isn’t even necessary to intentionally imagine it in order for it to work as a reinforcer.
This is also the answer to the larger question: we may suppose that a person who clearly visualizes just how bad the cancer would be will be more likely to quit smoking. This seems a fairly testable prediction, since it would imply a greater likelihood of someone quitting smoking if someone they know has suffered lung cancer as a result of their smoking. It would also imply that people instructed to vividly imagine various graphic details of themselves, diseased, every time they want a cigarette, would be more likely to successfully avoid smoking.
The difference in individuals would then quite clearly be attributable to differences in what the person was doing internally when they heard the doctor tell them to quite. Some people more vividly imagine things than others, some have better reference memories for imagining with, some have different prior probabilities for how likely they are to be sick (thus influencing their ability to “see themselves” in that state), etc.
In contrast, the pain of a fine or reproach is quite easy to imagine and is so closely associated with bans of anything that it isn’t even necessary to intentionally imagine it in order for it to work as a reinforcer.