Cognitive defusion versus experiential avoidance in the reduction of smoking behaviour: an experimental and preliminary investigation

Abstract

Background: Brief procedures that reduce smoking behaviour may be useful in reaching the many people that do not seek help for smoking addiction. Objectives: The current study aimed to determine if one component of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), cognitive defusion, could be useful in reducing smoking behaviour in a sample of students. Methods: The study employed a between-subjects three-arm design. For one week, participants were asked to reduce their cigarette consumption. To aid them in their reduction, participants were randomly allocated to one of three conditions: the first received a defusion procedure, the second received an experiential avoidance procedure and a control condition received no procedure. For a second week, the instruction to reduce cigarette consumption was lifted. During both weeks participants were required to monitor their smoking behaviour via a tally diary system. Results: The defusion condition smoked significantly less than the control condition during week one and significantly less than the control and experiential avoidance conditions during week two. Conclusion: Results are discussed in terms of the potential utility of defusion in this domain, and the limitations of this preliminary research that would need to be addressed in future investigations.

I Don’t Want to Hear It : Cognitive Control Strategies in Response to Task-Irrelevant Sound

“…As an example, Hooper, Sandoz, et al (2012) showed that participants who were instructed to suppress thoughts of chocolate for a week experienced a behavioral rebound on a subsequent taste test, where they ate significantly more chocolate than a group that had been instructed to use the acceptance-based technique of cognitive defusion. Similar studies have found that acceptance-based techniques are more effective than thought suppression, or similar strategies that serve an experiential avoidance function, for reducing smoking behavior (Hooper et al, 2018), in mitigating learned helplessness (Hooper & McHugh, 2013b), and for dealing with spider phobia (Hooper et al, 2011). Findings thus support the use of acceptance-based mental strategies over thought suppression and similar strategies for dealing with aversive thoughts and as a self-control strategy when attempting to resist temptations.…”

“…Additionally, cognitive control in the form of both thought suppression (Hennings et al, 2021), and attentional avoidance (O'Malley & Waters, 2018) during a fear extinction procedure have been shown to detrimentally impact fear extinction, similar to would be expected in relation to behavioral avoidance (Cornwell et al, 2013;Rattel et al, 2017). Hooper and colleagues (Hooper, 2010;Hooper et al, 2018;Hooper, Saunders, et al, 2010;Hooper, Villatte, et al, 2010;Hooper & McHugh, 2013a, 2013b have investigated the consequences of thought suppression and similar cognitive control strategies from an experiential avoidance perspective. Their account is grounded in the theoretical framework of Relational Frame Theory (Hayes et al, 2001), a contemporary behavior analytic theory of language and cognition.…”

An Avatar-Led Intervention Promotes Smoking Cessation in Young Adults: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial

“…Importantly, the mean number of cigarettes smoked per day also statistically significantly decreased in the Flexiquit compared to control group even among those individuals who did not quit smoking at postintervention. Therefore, even for participants who did not manage to fully quit at post, there was a trend towards decreasing the amount of cigarettes smoked per day in the intervention group, potentially bringing this group closer to completely quitting in the future [39,40].…”

A Fuzzy TOPSIS with Z-Number and Alpha-Cut in Identifying the Key Factor of Smoking Behaviours in Jordan

“…To verify the proposed method, a real case application is set up in this section. This paper is employed six smoking causes among Jordanian as the alternatives which are Parental Influence (A1) [10]- [12], Film Star Attraction (A2) [13]- [16], Feel More Adult (A3) [17]- [21], Look Cool/Fashionable (A4) ( [22]- [24]), Weight Control (A5) [25]- [28] Parent Neglect (A6) [29]- [31]. Based on six alternatives, four criteria were considered in this studu.…”