An evaluation of pain-related anxiety among daily cigarette smokers in terms of negative and positive reinforcement smoking outcome expectancies

The present investigation sought to evaluate the unique explanatory relevance of pain-related anxiety in relation to negative and positive reinforcement smoking outcome expectancies among 135 (40.7% female; Mage = 26.11, SD = 11.23) adult daily cigarette smokers. As predicted, pain-related anxiety was significantly related to greater expectancies that smoking will decrease negative affect, and lesser expectancies that smoking will result in positive outcomes. The observed effects were evident above and beyond the variance accounted for by gender, current level of non-specific bodily pain, daily cigarette use, relations with non-criterion outcome expectancies, and shared variance with anxiety sensitivity. Results suggest that there may be segments of the smoking population who are at relatively greater risk for certain expectancies for tobacco smoking by virtue of individual differences in pain-related anxiety.