Function of cigarette smoking in relation to examinations

Abstract

Eighty-two college students took part in a study on motives underlying increases in cigarette smoking prior to examinations. One group was tested a month before, and a second group was tested the day before, the start of examinations. Measures were taken of current cigarette consumption, general anxiety, anxiety about forthcoming exams, the importance of sedative and stimulant smoking motives, hours spent revising and in other activities and amounts smoked during these activities. The results indicated that the students increased the hours they spent revising and there was a corresponding increase in the number of cigarettes smoked during this activity. They also reported an increase in the importance of stimulant smoking motives. Anxiety levels increased in the run up to exams but there was no increase in sedative smoking motives. The results raise the issue of whether any anxiolytic action of nicotine may be limited to acute stressors and also whether smokers' use of cigarettes to help them stay alert during revision translates into improved examination performance.

Factors Related to Smoking in College Women

“…In a study of 120 college students who smoked, 49.3% identified academic stress as a motivator to smoke (Steptoe, Wardle, Plooard, Canaan, & Davies, 1996). Exam stress has also been linked to significant increases in the number of cigarettes smoked (West & Lennox, 1992). Southern adolescents (N = 3,198) who smoked were more likely to believe that smoking reduced stress and boredom, compared to their nonsmoking counterparts (Wang & Cowdery, 1994).…”

Effects of abstinence and smoking on information processing in adolescent smokers

“…Theoretical accounts have proposed that adults smoke to produce temporary improvements in performance (Pomerleau and Pomerleau 1984). Accordingly, survey research has found that college students smoke more heavily when preparing for exams than at other times in the semester and that this increase is related to the expected stimulant effects of tobacco (West and Lennox 1992). Empirical research with adults has shown that smoking improves skilled performance in abstinent adult smokers (Heishman et al 1994).…”

Methodological considerations in nicotine research: the use of “denicotinised” cigarettes as the control condition in smoking studies

“…1985;O'Neill and Parrott 1992). Immediate smoking history (Fant et al 1995), and degree of dependency (Willner et al 1995), subjective state (Gilbert et al 1989;West and Lennox 1992), differences in basal levels of arousal (Perkins et al 1992) and personality (Bartol 1975) may also affect the performance measures. While we can control some of these influences by design and experimental rigour, we still know too little about these subjective elements accurately to quantify their contribution or even to speculate on the ways in which they might interact.…”