Cigarette craving is a cardinal feature of smoking, which is the leading preventable cause of death. Despite its clinical relevance, there remains a pressing need to develop new approaches for controlling craving. Although olfactory cues (OCs) are especially well suited to reduce affectively charged cravings, there has been surprisingly little research on the topic. We investigated the strategic use of OCs to reduce cigarette craving. Abstinent smokers (N = 232) initially sampled and rated a series of OCs. Participants then were exposed to in vivo smoking cues, which produced robust cigarette cravings. During peak craving, they were randomly assigned to sniff one of three types of OCs (all of which they had previously sampled) while their craving, and a set of responses thought to be associated with craving, were assessed. OCs that a participant had rated as pleasant reduced craving more than did exposure to odor blank (i.e., neutral) or tobacco-related OCs. This effect persisted over the course of 5 min. In addition, smokers with the most specific autobiographical memory systems were most responsive to the craving-reducing effects of pleasant OCs. About 90% of participants reported they could imagine using a pleasant OC to curb their craving in the natural environment. The present data suggest that OCs show promise for controlling cravings and highlight the need to conduct further research to test whether OCs may prove useful alone or in combination with existing approaches as a smoking cessation intervention.
Objective: Brief alcohol interventions (BAIs) have historically centered on young adults attending 4-year predominantly white institutions. The purpose of this scoping review is to determine BAIs evaluated among young adults with one or more marginalized/understudied racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, and military/ Veteran identities and/or who are embedded in an understudied context based on houselessness, attending a 2-year institution, or not attending college. A secondary objective is to explore definitions of the constructs young adult and brief to inform subsequent systematic reviews. Method: Sources had to be published in English between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2019 and report the evaluation of an intervention ≤5 hr long, delivered over ≤4 weeks, among participants aged 18-30 years (or 16-30 in college contexts) within a specified marginalized/understudied subpopulation/context wherein alcohol use and/or consequences were a primary outcome. Systematic searches were conducted in APA PsycNet, the EBSCO Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, PubMed, Sociological Abstracts, and Web of Science. Screening was independently performed by two coders who also extracted data. Results: Of 4,825 identified records, 158 provided data; 86 described interventions fitting our definition of brief; of these, only 21 met criteria based on our definition of young adult, with nine meeting full inclusion criteria based on young adult subpopulation. Conclusions: Findings signify a need for additional research evaluating BAIs among young adult subpopulations and highlight the importance of carefully defining and reporting participant characteristics. Increased attention to sociocultural considerations and strengths relevant to the diverse contexts and intersecting identities of young adults may strengthen extant BAIs and equitably mitigate alcohol-related harm. Public Health Significance StatementThis scoping review highlights a need for more research assessing how well brief alcohol interventions work across young adults in various contexts and with one or more marginalized or understudied identities. The results suggest that attention to key definitions (e.g., What is meant by brief? How might the age range for young adult vary depending on social roles and settings?) and subpopulation-specific factors (e.g., experiences of discrimination, cultural sources of resilience) may lead to improved future research efforts in this area.
Responses to olfactory cues hold significant practical implications. For instance, emerging research reveals that strategic administration of pleasant olfactory cues can support positive health and well‐being outcomes. The underlying assumption is that pleasantness of odor perception stimulates various downstream benefits. However, olfactory responses vary across individuals and identifying who is most receptive to positive olfactory effects remains an important objective. One key factor may be the perceiver's mood. This study evaluated the association between natural mood state and subjective pleasantness ratings to normatively positive odors. In two experimental sessions, 232 participants with intact olfactory function rated their current mood and the pleasantness of six odorants. Across sessions, individuals with more positive baseline moods rated the odors as being more pleasant than did those with lower baseline mood scores. These findings suggest that individual differences in natural occurring mood should be considered in research examining the positive effects of olfactory cues. Practical Applications Pleasant olfactory cues show great potential for interventional research design within sensory science; however, there is little research examining how individual differences may impact the perception and effectiveness of odors. Our data demonstrate that baseline mood state is directly associated with the hedonic perception of pleasant odors. These findings illustrate that individual mood state may be essential to consider for basic research, applied, and consumer sensory panel testing of odor hedonics, and further suggest that inherent mood may influence the degree to which smelling normatively pleasant odors may enhance mental and physical health outcomes.
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