Quit interest influences smoking cue-reactivity

Interest in quitting smoking is important to model in cue-reactivity studies, because the craving elicited by cue exposure likely requires different self-regulation efforts for smokers who are interested in quitting compared to those without any quit interest. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the role of quit interest in how cigarette cue exposure influences self-control efforts. Smokers interested in quitting (n = 37) and smokers with no interest in quitting (n = 53) were randomly assigned to a cigarette or neutral cue exposure task. Following the cue exposure, all participants completed two self-control tasks, a measure of risky gambling (the Iowa Gambling Task) and a cold pressor tolerance task. Results indicated that smokers interested in quitting had worse performance on the gambling task when exposed to a cigarette cue compared to neutral cue exposure. We also found that people interested in quitting tolerated the cold pressor task for a shorter amount of time than people not interested in quitting. Finally, we found that for people interested in quitting, exposure to a cigarette cue was associated with increased motivation to take steps toward decreasing use. Overall these results suggest that including quit interest in studies of cue reactivity is valuable, as quit interest influenced smoking cue-reactivity responses.