Negative Affect as Motivation to Smoke

Abstract

Fifty million Americans smoke to bacco, and nearly half a million per year die prematurely because of it. Although the dangers of smoking have long been suspected?King James I displayed the black lungs of smokers in 1605?general aware ness of the health consequences of smoking began with the 1964 sur geon general's report on smoking and health. Today, we know that smoking is the major risk factor for coronary heart disease and lung can cer, and that smoking contributes to cancers of the larynx, oral cavity, esophagus, bladder, and pancreas, as well as to chronic bronchitis, em physema, and ulcer disease. Mater nal smoking is associated with low birth weight, prenatal death, and re tarded growth in childhood. Ciga rettes are also the major cause of fire deaths. Finally, recent research sug gests that secondhand smoke poses a significant health risk to people who live with smokers. Despite widespread knowledge of the dangers of smoking, 25% of adults in the United States still smoke, and the percentage is much higher in many other countries. To bacco use and its consequences are thus major social problems requiring investigation and efforts at behavior change. Additionally, the study of tobacco smoking can serve as a model for substance abuse in gen eral. Compared with most other ad dictive populations, smokers are plentiful, tend to have relatively sta ble life-styles, and use a legal sub stance. Hence, they provide a con venient population for studying general issues of substance use that cut across the particular substances (e.g., physiological dependence and tolerance, craving, pr?cipitants of relapse, treatment approaches). In fact, much of the tobacco research reviewed in this article has parallels in research involving other sub stances.1 There is little doubt that the onset

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Affiliated Institutions

• Binghamton University US

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