This research will investigate two cognitive/psychological factors that our previous research has suggested are related to smoking cessation and maintenance of abstinence; those are perceptions of health risk and social comparison processes. Our research has shown that these perceptions change over time among persons who are trying to quit smoking. Moreover, these changes provide a reliable indication of progress in cessation. In the current research, it is hypothesized that these changes can either inhibit or facilitate cessation and maintenance of abstinence. More specifically, we have shown that relapse is associated with a significant decline in perceptions of smoking risk; there is reason to believe that this decline may, in turn, signal a reduction in the motivation to make a subsequent quit attempt(s) after relapse. There is also evidence that psychological distancing from the """"""""typical smoker"""""""" prototype (a result of social comparison) is associated with long-term maintenance of abstinence (i.e., the more people distance themselves from the prototype, the more likely they are to be abstinent 6 months later). Although encouraging, our earlier clinic research was based on a small N and the results are not definitive. This time a much larger sample of cessation clinic subjects will be used. The study is longitudinal with data collection at 6 points beginning with the first clinic session and including 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups. Variables to be assessed include social comparison processes (e.g., comparison of self with specific individuals as well as with the """"""""prototypical smoker"""""""") and risk perceptions, as before, plus new variables suggested by our more recent research, such as self-esteem and attributions for relapse and cessation. In addition, more detailed descriptions of smokers' perceptions will be obtained. Responses of abstainers and relapsers will then be compared; and we will use our variables in regression analyses to predict outcome (i.e., smoking status as well as severity of smoking problem). Information generated by this research should prove useful in further identifying psychological factors related to abstinence and relapse, and thus should help design more effective cessation interventions.
