Smoking and negative affect

Approximately 25 percent of adults in the United Kingdom smoke despite awareness of the significant health risks. There is much debate about why individuals continue to smoke (e.g. appetitive effects of nicotine, habitual behaviour). Many addicted individuals describe coping with negative affect as key reason for continued drug-use. A review of the literature suggests that negative affect is an important feature of smoking behaviour. However, there is a lack of theory driven reason that explores the underlying mechanisms which might moderate and maintain this relationship. A recent model of addiction is able to account for many facets of the empirical evidence surrounding addictions and suggests some testable mechanisms which underlie dependence; namely, that negative affect will increase drug craving and bias selective attention towards drug-related cues (Baker, Piper, McCarthy, Majeskie and Fjore, 2004). Research was carried out to investigate whether negative affect in smokers would increase craving and attentional bias towards drug-related cues. The present findings suggest that negative affect does increase craving and bias selective attention in favour of drug-cues. Furthermore, that biases in selective attention may occur specifically in the early stages of stimulus evaluation rather than in the maintenance of attention. There was some evidence of maintained attention to drug-related cues, however, this was related to smoking status (e.g. whether a smoker or non-smoker) rather than mood state. These findings suggest that different underlying processes may mediate the relationship between attentional bias for drug-related cues, smoking status and negative mood states. Further research is required to clarify this issue.