From the office to the pub: the role of smoking-relevant contexts and cue-elicited urge to smoke.
The present study investigates how environmental contexts can affect cue-elicited urge to smoke. A total of 33 smokers were repeatedly presented with a cue predicting smoking and a cue predicting no smoking in one room and the effect of context change in a different room was assessed. Results endorsed earlier findings that a cue predicting smoking availability elicited more urge to smoke than a cue predicting smoking unavailability. Furthermore, this study shows that a context switch from a low smoking-relevant room to a high smoking-relevant room reduces the learned differential urge responding between the two availability cues. These findings are discussed in relation to the role that smoking-relevant contexts play in the generalization of differential urge responding after a context switch. Furthermore, implications for government policies on smoking and clinical issues are discussed.
Thewissen
Roy
R
Department of Medical, Clinical and Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands. r.thewissen@psychology.unimaas.nl
van der Meijden
Valerie A F
VA
Havermans
Remco C
RC
van den Hout
Marcel
M
Jansen
Anita
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D012931:Social Environment; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult