title: Do people serve as cues to smoke?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent research has identified that the environments in which smoking has previously occurred can alone, in the absence of any explicit smoking stimuli (e.g., cigarettes, lighters), serve as cues that induce robust craving to smoke. The goal of the present study was to determine if people can similarly function as smoking and nonsmoking cues capable of directly affecting smokers' cue-induced craving.
  
  
  METHODS
  Smokers (N = 72) borrowed cameras to take photos of the people in their lives around whom they do and do not smoke ("personal" smoking and nonsmoking people, PS and PN, respectively). Self-report and physiological cue reactivity to those photos were compared with smokers' reactivity to photos of people unknown to them ("standard" smoking and nonsmoking people, SS and SN, respectively).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results suggest that the people around whom smokers regularly smoke (PS) can alone function as cues capable of eliciting patterns of reactivity similar to that evoked by proximal and environment smoking cues, namely, increased craving to smoke, negative affect, and excitement. In contrast, the people around whom smokers do not smoke become associated with not smoking (PN) and serve a potential protective function by reducing craving and increasing calm.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This novel investigation and its results have implications for promoting smoking cessation by developing strategies to manage a smoker's social environment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
authors.forename: Cynthia A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Conklin
authors.forename: Ronald P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Salkeld
authors.forename: Kenneth A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Perkins
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Robin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000368:Aged; D001143:Arousal; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology*; D066249:Craving; D003463:Cues; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D057566:Self Report; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology*; D012931:Social Environment; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult