An Association between Emotional Responsiveness and Smoking Behavior

Abstract EN

Introduction.

Emotional responsiveness (ER) has been theorized to play a protective role in pathways to tobacco initiation, regular use, and dependence, yet a possible association between ER and smoking behavior has not been studied.

Our aim was to test whether measuring ER to a neutral stimulus was associated with decreased odds of current smoking.

Methods.

We measured ER and smoking status (current, former, and never) in two datasets: a cross-sectional dataset of persons with diabetes (n=127) and a prospective dataset of depressed patients (n=107) from an urban primary care system.

Because there were few former smokers in the datasets, smoking status was dichotomized (current versus former/never) and measured at baseline (cross-sectional dataset) or at 36 weeks after-baseline (prospective dataset).

ER was ascertained with response to a neutral facial expression (any ER versus none).

Results.

Compared to their nonresponsive counterparts, adjusted odds of current smoking were lower among participants endorsing emotional responsiveness in both the cross-sectional and prospective datasets (ORs = .29 and .32, P’s <.02, resp.).

Discussion.

ER may be protective against current smoking behavior.

Further research investigating the association between ER and decreased smoking may hold potential to inform treatment approaches to improve smoking prevalence.