Linkages between cigarette smoking outcome expectancies and negative emotional vulnerability

Abstract

The present investigation examined whether smoking outcome expectancies, as measured by the Smoking Consequences Questionnaire (SCQ; Brandon & Baker, 1991), were incrementally related to emotional vulnerability factors among an adult sample of 202 daily cigarette smokers (44.6% women; M age = 23.78 years, SD = 9.69 years). After controlling for cigarettes smoked per day, past 30-day marijuana use, current alcohol consumption, and coping style, negative reinforcement/ negative affect reduction outcome expectancies were significantly associated with greater levels of negative affectivity, emotional dysregulation, and anxiety sensitivity. The observed effects for negative reinforcement/negative affect reduction also were independent of shared variance with other outcome expectancies. Negative personal consequences outcome expectancies were significantly and incrementally related to anxiety sensitivity, but not negative affectivity or emotional dysregulation. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of negative reinforcement/negative affect reduction smoking outcome expectancies and clinically-relevant negative emotional vulnerability for better understanding cigarette smoking-negative mood problems.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael J. Zvolensky, Ph.D., Dr. Zvolensky can be contacted at The University of Vermont, Department of Psychology, 2, Colchester Avenue, John Dewey Hall, Burlington,. Electronic mail may be sent to Michael.Zvolensky@uvm.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. 2 Although not a primary aim of the current study, exploratory analyses focused on positive affectivity were completed for comparative purposes. These analyses were completed in an identical fashion to those reported in the paper except positive affectivity was employed as the dependent variable. Here, predictor variables accounted for 22.1% of the overall variance for positive affectivity [F(9, 198) = 5.95, p < .001]. Level one of the model accounted for 17.1% of the variance, with significant contributions by the emotional processing and emotional expression subscales (β = .30, p < .001 and β = .16, p < .05, respectively). Level two of the model accounted for an additional 5% of the variance, with the appetite control subscale being the only significant predictor (β = −.16, p < .05). There is a recent and increasingly well-documented association between cigarette smoking and depressive and anxiety symptoms and disorders (Morrell & Cohen, 2006;Morissette, Tull, Gulliver, Kamholz, & Zimering, 2007;Patton, Carlin, Coffey, Wolfe, Hibbert, & ...

The Role of Mindful Attention in Regard to the Relation Between Negative Affect Reduction Outcome Expectancies and Emotional Vulnerability Among Adult Cigarette Smokers

“…Also as expected, mindful attention was significantly negatively associated with each of the criterion variables, such that higher levels of mindful attention were related to lower levels of anxious arousal, anhedonic depression, and emotional dysregulation. These findings are consistent with past work related to both smoking-relevant outcome expectancies (e.g., Johnson et al 2008;Zvolensky et al 2008b) and mindful attention (e.g., Vujanovic et al 2007). Notably, negative affect reduction outcome expectancies and mindful attention were significantly negatively correlated with each other at the zero-order level (r = .20, p \ .01), indicating that these two variables are distinct, though associated, constructs.…”

“…Although empirical investigations have begun to examine the effects of cigarette smoking outcome expectancies in relation to the experience of negative affective symptoms and difficulties with regulating emotions (Zvolensky et al 2008b;Johnson et al 2008), work has not yet focused on factors that may serve to impact these negative effects. The present investigation sought to address this gap in the existing literature by examining the role of mindful attention in regard to the relationship between negative affect reduction outcome expectancies and anxious arousal, anhedonic depressive symptoms, and difficulties with emotion regulation.…”

“…That is, although an individual smoker may hold varied beliefs about the effects of smoking (Brandon and Baker 1991), those persons who hold the strongest beliefs that smoking will yield effective mood management benefits may be the most prone to affective disturbances. Consistent with this perspective, negative affect reduction outcome expectancies have been found to predict negative emotional reactivity to laboratory-induced stress (Zvolensky et al 2008b), self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms, and difficulties with regulating emotions (Johnson et al 2008). It is noteworthy that these effects are not better accounted for by coping style, level of cigarette use, other substance use (alcohol or marijuana), comorbid psychopathology, or individual differences in negative emotional factors (e.g., neuroticism; Johnson et al 2008).…”

Cultural Adaptation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale: Reliability and Validity of an Italian Version

“…The DERS predicts significant correlations with several criterion variables, including experiential avoidance and self-harm. Other empirical findings confirmed good construct validity and a high internal consistency with both clinical and non-clinical populations (Fox et al, 2007;Gratz et al, 2008;Johnson et al, 2008). The DERS has demonstrated sensitivity to changes due to successful therapeutic outcome Gratz, Lacroce, & Gunderson, 2006) and convergence with a behavioral measure of emotion dysregulation .…”

Applying the Tripartite Model of Anxiety and Depression to Cigarette Smoking: An Integrative Review

“…Several investigations have found small to moderate sized, statistically significant positive associations (rs < .33) between cigarettes per day and NA among adult residents of Spain (Becona et al, 1999), Moscow (Zvolensky, Kotov, Antipova, & Schmidt, 2003), and America Johnson et al, 2008;Zvolensky, Bonn-Miller, Bernstein, & Marshall, 2006;Zvolensky, Vujanovic, et al, 2007;. In contrast, there are other reports of no significant association between cigarettes per day and NA (Gonzalez, Zvolensky, Vujanovic, Leyro, & Marshall, 2008;Gregor, Zvolensky, McLeish, Bernstein, & Morissette, 2008;Leventhal et al, 2008;Zvolensky et al, 2004;Zvolensky, Gonzalez, Bonn-Miller, Bernstein, & Goodwin, 2008).…”