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Impulsiveness and Cigarette Smoking

From the Department of Psychology, Queens College, CUNY, Flushing, New York (J.D.F.); Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York (J.D.F.); Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (S.B.M.).

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Janine D. Flory, PhD, Department of Psychology, Queens College, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY 11367. E-mail: janine.flory{at}qc.cuny.edu

Objective: Varying aspects of impulsive personality have been associated with tobacco use in cross-sectional and prospective studies, including novelty seeking and (low) constraint but most studies have not examined more than one tobacco use phenotype (e.g., any tobacco use versus dependence) or considered more than one variety of impulsiveness simultaneously.

Methods: The current study was conducted to evaluate the association of impulsive personality features with multiple tobacco use phenotypes including smoking status, lifetime tobacco consumption, and dependence in a sample of 1284 adults between the ages of 30 and 54. Participants completed multiple self-report measures of impulsive personality and were interviewed regarding lifetime tobacco use.

Results: Results revealed that reward seeking and disinhibitory traits were both associated with smoking status but only disinhibition was associated with tobacco dependence, after controlling for reward seeking.

Conclusions: The results reported here may aid investigations aimed at identifying neurobiological, including genetic, correlates of tobacco use and dependence by providing potential behavioral correlates of the diversity of tobacco use phenotypes. Moreover, successful efforts to prevent tobacco-related disease through prevention or cessation programs will be facilitated by the identification of factors that are differentially associated with different smoking phenotypes.

Key Words: Disinhibition • impulsiveness • reward seeking • tobacco use

Abbreviations: TCI = Temperament and Character Inventory; NS = Novelty Seeking; ZSS = Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale; BIS = Barratt Impulsiveness Scale.