title: Implicit attitudes toward smoking: how the smell of cigarettes influences responses of college-age smokers and nonsmokers.
abstract: The habit of smoking may have automatic behavioral components guided by implicit attitudes. Smokers' attitudes toward smoking should thus be less negative than nonsmokers', so that a salient smoking cue (smell) is able to activate positive aspects of these attitudes. An affective priming task was used to explore this hypothesis. Unexpectedly, smokers and nonsmokers showed equally negative implicit attitudes, irrespective of smell. Smokers exposed to the cigarette smell did, however, display generally slower responses than nonsmokers, suggesting attentional bias. This could have implications for smoking policies in contexts where attentional factors affect performance.
authors.affiliation: University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Glock
authors.forename: Carrie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kovacs
authors.forename: Dagmar
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Unz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D060865:Repetition Priming; D012903:Smell; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution
keywords: associative–propositional evaluation model; attentional bias; cigarette smell; implicit attitudes; smoking