Many people make New Year's Resolutions to quit smoking. Two weeks into the new year many have relapsed and smoked a cigarette. Psychological research offers some reasons for this. If you can resist the urge to smoke, you will experience fewer cravings. People with high self-esteem are especially likely to reject information suggesting that their health behavior (in this case smoking) has been unwise or risky.

In the first study, psychological researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University assessed smoking urges several times daily in 214 smokers who quit for at least 24 hours while participating in the study. Each participant was equipped with a palm-top computer to record their urges to smoke. The research revealed that how much craving a person experiences on a given day predicts the likelihood of relapse the next day. But the best predictor of relapse was morning craving -- the stronger the craving was just after waking, the more likely the person was to relapse.

The study also showed that craving was quite high before smokers quit, and dropped over time. Indeed, says psychologist Saul Shiffman, Ph.D., from the Smoking Research Group at the University of Pittsburgh, and lead author of the study, "cravings for cigarettes after abstinence seem to drop over time, so the longer you abstain the easier it will get." Dr. Shiffman's advice to smokers trying to quit: "Don't get discouraged, the longer you resist the urge to relapse, the fewer urges you will experience."

Reference:

• Saul Shiffman, Ph.D., Jean A. Paty, Ph.D., Walter G. Perez, Ph.D., Maryann Gnys, Ph.D., Jon D. Kessel, Ph.D., Mary Hickcox, Ph.D., and John B. Engberg, Ph.D. A Day at a Time: Predicting Smoking Lapse From Daily Urge. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 401-402.

• HIGH SELF-ESTEEM INTERFERES WITH SUCCESS RATE

  by Frederick X. Gibbons, Ph.D., Tami J. Eggleston, Ph.D. and Alida Benthin, Ph.D.
  

  Additional new research suggests that smoking cessation programs should take into account lowered risk perception after a relapse. This study group looked at the conflict between knowing the health risks associated with smoking and relapse behavior.

  Psychologists at Iowa State University assessed 174 smokers before, during and after an attempt to quit and compared high and low self-esteem abstainers and relapsers. Each participant was asked to give their two main reasons for quitting, if they had any major illnesses (such as heart disease) and their level of self- esteem was assessed. Participants also provided the researchers with the names and phone numbers of two people who could verify their smoking status during the study. At the six- and 12-month follow-up, participants were asked about their smoking status -- if they had smoked and how long they had been abstinent.

  High self-esteem participants who had relapsed by the six- month follow-up reported a significant drop in risk perception at that time and this drop remained significant at the 12-month follow-up. In addition, these same individuals were less likely to commit to making another attempt to quit smoking. "People with high self-esteem have difficulty admitting that their behavior has been unhealthy and/or unwise, and sometimes that difficulty can have a negative effect on their health," says psychologist Frederick Gibbons, Ph.D., and lead author of the study.

  Reference:
  

• Frederick X. Gibbons, Ph.D., Tami J. Eggleston, Ph.D. and Alida Benthin, Ph.D. Cognitive Reactions to Smoking Relapse: The Reciprocal Relation Between Dissonance and Self-Esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 72, No. 1, pp. 184-195.

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