Depression and Anxiety Symptoms Moderate the Relation Between Negative Reinforcement Smoking Outcome Expectancies and Nicotine Dependence

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Objective: Smoking reinforcement expectancies-expectations that smoking modulates mood-can be powerful motivators to smoke, resulting in increased nicotine dependence. The impact of smoking reinforcement expectancies on nicotine dependence may be particularly strong in individuals with increased mood or anxiety symptoms because they may be more likely to act on expectancies with smoking behavior in order to offset their affective symptoms. This study examined levels of emotional symptom dimensions as moderators of the relation between positive and negative smoking reinforcement expectancies and nicotine dependence severity in a community sample. Method: In a cross-sectional design, 317 daily cigarette smokers (215 men) completed self-report measures of smoking reinforcement expectancies, mood and anxiety symptoms, and nicotine dependence. Results: Increasing levels of negative affect and anxiety symptoms strengthened associations between negative reinforcement smoking expectancies and nicotine dependence severity (moderation effects; s > .13; ps < .03) but did not moderate relations between positive reinforcement expectancies and dependence. Anhedonia did not moderate relations involving either positive or negative reinforcement smoking expectancies. Conclusions: Distinct components of anxiety and depressive symptoms interact differently with smoking reinforcement expectancies. Emotional symptoms characterized by excesses in aversive (but not defi cits in appetitive) functioning may amplify tendencies to compulsively act on negative reinforcement expectancies by smoking. Cessation treatments that target negative reinforcement expectancies may be particularly salient for emotionally distressed smokers. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 75, 775-780, 2014)

The Theory of Planned Behavior and E-cig Use: Impulsive Personality, E-cig Attitudes, and E-cig Use

“…Impulsivity is a multi-dimensional construct, likely composed of five separate, although related, impulsive traits (Whiteside & Lynam, 2001), which map onto three latent factors (Cyders & Smith, 2007; Cyders et al, 2014): 1) urgency , which is comprised of negative urgency , or a disposition to act rashly in response to negative affect, and positive urgency , or a disposition to act rashly in response to positive affect, 2) deficits in conscientiousness , which is comprised of lack of perseverance , or difficulties seeing tasks through completion, and lack of premeditation , or acting before thinking, and 3) sensation seeking , or seeking out novel and/or exciting experiences. These traits have shown differential relationships with smoking behaviors (Lee et al, 2015), with urgency being the strongest predictor of cigarette use, above and beyond other impulsive personality traits (Lee et al, 2015; Pang et al, 2014). Although no work has examined how e-cig use is related to the above-described factors, some recent work suggests that sensation seeking is related to e-cig use (Cohn et al, 2015).…”

Effects of 6-Week Use of Reduced-Nicotine Content Cigarettes in Smokers With and Without Elevated Depressive Symptoms

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Barriers to cessation in smokers with elevated depressive symptoms include high levels of cigarette craving and withdrawal-related negative affect, along with beliefs that smoking improves negative affect. 13,14 Although smoking reduces withdrawal-related negative affect, smoking cessation is associated with improvement, rather than worsening, in depressive symptoms over time. 15 Nevertheless, the perception that smoking improves depressive symptoms may contribute to smoking persistence in this population.…”

Evidence of subgroups in smokers as revealed in clinical measures and evaluated by neuroimaging data: a preliminary study

“…) and perceived benefit in relief of depression and anxiety (Pang et al . ). Furthermore, cholinergic agonists have demonstrated modest beneficial effects on attention and hyperactivity symptoms as well as cognition and emotion in ADHD clinical trials (Potter et al .…”