Emotion differentiation and intensity during acute tobacco abstinence: A comparison of heavy and light smokers

• Examined patterns of emotion differentiation in relation to nicotine dependence
• Heavy smokers demonstrated poorer negative emotion differentiation.
• Heavy smokers experienced greater negative emotion intensity and lability.
• Emotion differentiation was negatively associated with secondary dependence motives.

The ability to recognize and label discrete emotions, termed emotion differentiation, is particularly pertinent to overall emotion regulation abilities. Patterns of deficient emotion differentiation have been associated with mood and anxiety disorders but have yet to be examined in relation to nicotine dependence. This study employed ecological momentary assessment to examine smokers' subjective experience of discrete emotions during 24-h of forced tobacco abstinence. Thirty daily smokers rated their emotions up to 23 times over the 24-hour period, and smoking abstinence was biologically verified. From these data, we computed individual difference measures of emotion differentiation, overall emotion intensity, and emotional variability. As hypothesized, heavy smokers reported poorer negative emotion differentiation than light smokers (d = 0.55), along with more intense negative emotion (d = 0.97) and greater negative emotion variability (d = 0.97). No differences were observed in positive emotion differentiation. Across the sample, poorer negative emotion differentiation was associated with greater endorsement of psychological motives to smoke, including negative and positive reinforcement motives, while positive emotion differentiation was not.