R. Eisenberger's (1992) learned industriousness theory states that individuals display differing degrees of persistence depending on their history of reinforcement for effortful behavior. These differences may influence the development, maintenance, and cessation of addictive behaviors. In cross-sectional studies, E. P. Quinn, T. H. Brandon, and A. L. Copeland (1996) found that cigarette smokers were less persistent than nonsmokers, and R. A. Brown, C. W. Lejuez, C. W. Kahler, and D. R. Strong (2002) found that smokers who had previously abstained for 3 months were more persistent than those who had never quit. The present study extended these findings by using a prospective design. A pretreatment measure of task persistence (mirror tracing) completed by 144 smokers predicted sustained abstinence throughout 12 months of follow-up. Moreover, persistence predicted outcome independent of other significant predictors: gender, nicotine dependence, negative affect, and self-efficacy.

Objective To gain an in-depth understanding of what young adult electronic- or e-cigarette users like or dislike about e-cigarettes. We aimed to determine the reasons that may encourage young adults to use e-cigarettes or discourage them from using e-cigarettes. Design Twelve focus group discussions were conducted with 62 current daily e-cigarette users (63% men) of mean age = 25.1 years (Standard Deviation = 5.5). Data were analyzed following principles of inductive content analysis. Results Results indicated 12 categories of reasons for liking e-cigarettes (e.g., recreation, smoking cessation) and 6 categories of reasons for not liking e-cigarettes (e.g., poor product quality, poor smoking experience). Conclusions Young adults’ motives for using or not using e-cigarettes appear to be varied and their relative importance in terms of predicting e-cigarette use initiation, dependence, and cigarette/e-cigarette dual use needs to be carefully studied in population-based, empirical studies. The current findings suggest that e-cigarettes may serve social, recreational, and sensory expectancies that are unique relative to cigarettes and not dependent on nicotine. Further, successful use of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation will likely need higher standards of product quality control, better nicotine delivery efficiency and a counseling component that would teach smokers how to manage e-cigarette devices while trying to quit smoking cigarettes.

Objective To test whether exposure and receptivity to e-cigarette marketing are associated with recent e-cigarette use among young adults through increased beliefs that e-cigarettes are less harmful than cigarettes. Methods Data were collected from 307 multiethnic 4- and 2-year college students; approximately equal proportions of current, never, and former cigarette smokers [mean age = 23.5 (SD = 5.5); 65% female]. Results Higher receptivity to e-cigarette marketing was associated with perceptions that e-cigarettes are less harmful than cigarettes, which in turn, were associated with higher recent e-cigarette use. Conclusions The findings provide preliminary support to the proposition that marketing of e-cigarettes as safer alternatives to cigarettes or cessation aids is associated with increased e-cigarette use among young adults. The findings have implications for development of e-cigarette regulations.

Several lines of experimental research have shown that attributional styles are affected by the attributor's culture, inferential goals, and level of cognitive processing. Can these findings be replicated in natural settings? This study compared the attributions made in two domains (sports articles and editorials) of newspapers published in two culturally distinct countries (Hong Kong and the United States). Consistent with the cross-cultural research, attributions were less dispositional in the East than in the West. This cultural difference was weaker in editorials than in sports articles. The authors argue that the higher level of complexity, accountability, and uncertainty in editorials increased the cognitive effort expended to make attributions, which, in turn, attenuated their extremity. Implications for the mixed model of social inference are discussed.

Background E-cigarette use outcome expectancies and their relationships with demographic and e-cigarette use variables are not well understood. Based on past cigarette as well as e-cigarette use research, we generated self-report items to assess e-cigarette outcome expectancies among college students. The objective was to determine different dimensions of e-cigarette use expectancies and their associations with e-cigarette use and use susceptibility. Methods Self-report data were collected from 307 multiethnic 4- and 2-year college students [M age=23.5 (SD= 5.5); 65% Female; 35% current cigarette smokers] in Hawaii. Data analyses were conducted by using factor and regression analyses. Results Exploratory factor analysis among e-cigarette ever-users indicated 7 factors: 3 positive expectancy factors (social enhancement, affect regulation, positive sensory experience) and 4 negative expectancy factors (negative health consequences, addiction concern, negative appearance, negative sensory experience). Confirmatory factor analysis among e-cigarette never-users indicated that the 7-factor model fitted reasonably well to the data. Being a current cigarette smoker was positively associated with positive expectancies and inversely with negative expectancies. Higher positive expectancies were significantly associated with greater likelihood of past-30-day e-cigarette use. Except addiction concern, higher negative expectancies were significantly associated with lower likelihood of past-30-day e-cigarette use. Among e-cigarette never-users, positive expectancy variables were significantly associated with higher intentions to use e-cigarettes in the future, adjusting for current smoker status and demographic variables. Conclusions E-cigarette use expectancies determined in this study appear to predict e-cigarette use and use susceptibility among young adults and thus have important implications for future research.

A vast majority of U.S. young adults use social media such as Facebook and Instagram daily. Research suggests that young adults are commonly exposed to e-cigarette-related marketing or user-generated content on the social media they use. Currently, however, there is limited empirical evidence as to how social media e-cigarette exposure is associated with e-cigarette use beliefs and behavior. In particular, limited evidence exists to support the proposition that social media e-cigarette exposure is uniquely associated with e-cigarette use, even after adjusting for the effects of e-cigarette use in young adults' in-person or 'offline' social networks. This study was conducted to test the hypotheses that 1) social media e-cigarette exposure is associated with e-cigarette use outcome expectancies and current e-cigarette use; and 2) the association between social media and e-cigarette use is linked via outcome expectancies. We collected cross-sectional data from a sample of 470 young adult college students in Hawaii. Hypotheses were tested by fitting a structural equation model to the data. The model accounted for the associations of demographic variables, cigarette smoking history, as well as e-cigarette use in individuals' actual social networks with expectancies and behavior. Results indicated that social media e-cigarette exposure was associated with current e-cigarette use indirectly through two of the four positive outcome expectancies examined, namely, positive "smoking" experience and positive sensory experience. We discuss the implications of the findings in the context of tobacco control efforts.

This paper is part of a series that has the goal of identifying potential approaches toward developing new instruments for assessing tobacco dependence among adolescents. The fundamental assumption underlying the series is that contemporary theories of drug dependence offer a rich source of opportunities for the development of theoretically based assessment tools. The present paper focuses on cognitive and social-learning models of drug dependence and the implications of these models for novel assessment instruments. In particular, the paper focuses on Mark Goldman's model of drug expectancies, Albert Bandura's model of self-efficacy, Thomas Wills's model of stress and coping and Stephen Tiffany's cognitive-processing model of drug urges and cravings. In addition to traditional self-report measures, naturalistic and laboratory-based assessments are identified that may yield information relevant to multi-dimensional measurement of tobacco dependence.

Relapse prevention remains a major challenge to smoking cessation efforts. T. H. Brandon, B. N. Collins, L. M. Juliano, and A. B. Lazev (2000) found that a series of 8 empirically based relapse-prevention booklets mailed to ex-smokers over 1 year significantly reduced relapse. This study dismantled 2 components of that intervention: the amount of content (number of booklets) and the frequency of contact. Content and contact were crossed in a 2 X 2 factorial design. The criteria of at least 1 week of abstinence at baseline was met by 431 participants, 75%-85% of whom returned 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-up questionnaires. Eight booklets produced consistently higher point-prevalence abstinence rates than did a single booklet, but frequency of contact did not affect outcome. Moreover, the high-content interventions were highly cost-effective.