Treatment for smoking and nicotine dependence has seen few innovations in the last two decades. One reason for this lack of innovation is an increasing recognition among researchers that the basic biobehavioral mechanisms which regulate smoking and cessation behaviors are not well understood. This proposal responds to the critical need for basic theorizing and research in the domain of smoking and smoking cessation by developing an integrative social-cognitive theory to account for information processing, and the regulation of affect and behavior among smokers. We propose to conduct two laboratory-based studies to validate the functioning of the smoker self-schema, abstainer ideal-possible self, and abstainer ought possible self in these three domains. We will employ idiographic measurement procedures that we have developed in prior work to assess the these structural cognitive constructs. Study will assess, in a within subjects design using cognitive priming procedures and a reaction time task, the degree to which the proposed constructs help to regulate information processing among smokers. We expect that the smoker self-schema will facilitate processing of smoking cue information and that the abstainer ideal possible self and abstainer ought possible self will regulate processing of coping information Study 2, using the same idiographic assessment procedures and priming manipulations, and utilizing a cue exposure paradigm, will evaluate the regulatory functioning of these constructs on smoking urges, physiological reactivity, anxious and dysphoric affect, and coping responses. We predict that discrepancy between the smoker self- schema and the abstainer ideal possible self will regulate approach coping behaviors and dysphoric moods, and that the discrepancy between the smoker self-schema and the abstainer ought possible self will regulate avoidance coping behaviors and anxious emotional states, when cognitively primed. Support for this social cognitive model would advance an understanding of the mechanisms involved in smoking and cessation behaviors, and possible lead to developing interventions that will help increasing number of smokers to quit.
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| Shadel, W G; Niaura, R; Abrams, D B (2001) Effect of different cue stimulus delivery channels on craving reactivity: comparing in vivo and video cues in regular cigarette smokers. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry 32:203-9 |
