Antecedent and attendant stimuli in smoking: Implications for behavioral maintenance and modification

Abstract

Considerable research exists on biological and psychological explanations for smoking and evaluations of interventions. This research, which supports a psychological model of smoking maintenance, identified situations commonly associated with smoking and noted implications for intervention. College student (N = 34) and general public (N = 48) men and women smokers were questioned about the frequency, onset age, and daily situations associated with their habit. No sex differences were found in either sample for responses, and correlations between smoking rate and onset age or years of smoking were not significant. Chi‐square analysis indicated significant differences between samples in frequency with which common situational stimuli were associated with smoking. This behavior may be maintained as functionally autonomous, and effective intervention must sensitize smokers to elicitive situational stimuli as well as the smoking response.

Assessing smoking patterns and motives.

“…The most important alternate approach was developed by Frith (1971), whose assessment contrasts preference for smoking in high-and low-arousal situations; unfortunately, space limitations preclude a thorough review here. Ad hoc scales, which often lack adequate coverage of smoking situations and motives, have also made single appearances (e.g., Buckalew & Gibson, 1984;Linn & Stein, 1985). This review will focus on the RFS, OFS, and MFS.…”

Self-efficacy and social support as predictors of smoking after a quit attempt

“…In collaboration with Liddle ( 1986), a 19-item self-efficacy scale was constructed. The scale was based on items from previous self-efficacy scales (Condiotte and Lichstenstein, 1981;Di Climente, 1981;Nicki, Remington and MacDonald, 1984), on high risk situations for relapse (Cummings, Gordon and Marlatt, 1980;Shiffman, 1982), and on high frequency situations for smoking (Buckalew and Gibson, 1984). The items in the scale are reproduced in Table 1.…”