Journal
NICOTINE & TOBACCO RESEARCH
Volume 15, Issue 6, Pages 1084-1090Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/ntr/nts208
Keywords
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Funding
- [R01DA026831]
- [K08DA025041]
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Anxiety sensitivity (i.e., AS; the degree to which one believes that anxiety and its related sensations are harmful) is a stable trait that is associated with habitual smoking. Yet, the mechanisms linking AS and smoking are unclear. A promising hypothesis is that high-AS individuals are more sensitive to the acute subjective reinforcing effects of smoking and are, therefore, more prone to tobacco dependence. This study examined trait AS as a predictor of several subjective effects of cigarette smoking. Adult non-treatment-seeking smokers (N 87; 10 cigarettes/day) completed a measure of AS during a baseline session. Prior to a subsequent experimental session, participants were asked to smoke normally before their appointment. At the outset of that visit, each participant smoked a single cigarette of their preferred brand in the laboratory. Self-report measures of affect and cigarette craving were completed before and after smoking, and post-cigarette subjective effect ratings were provided. AS predicted greater increases in positive affect from pre- to post-cigarette ( .30, p .006) as well as greater smoking satisfaction and psychological reward ( .23 to .48, ps < .03). Each of these effects remained statistically significant after adjusting for anxiety symptom severity. AS did not predict the degree of negative affect and craving suppression or post-cigarette aversive effects. These findings suggest that positive reinforcement mechanisms may be particularly salient etiological processes that maintain smoking in high-AS individuals.
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