Manipulation of cigarette craving through rapid smoking: efficacy and effects on smoking behavior

Craving is thought to play an important role in maintaining regular smoking patterns in current smokers, and in leading to relapse in smokers attempti ng to quit. Within the scientific community however, the concept is surroun ded by controversy. In an effort to 1) identify interventions that can reli ably influence cigarette cravings, and 2) assess the relationship between c igarette craving and smoking behavior, effects of aversive rapid smoking (u p to nine cigarettes with puffs taken every 6 s) on self-reported craving a nd subsequent smoking behavior were compared to effects of self-paced smoki ng or no smoking. Subjects (n = 14) engaged in a rapid, self-paced or no sm oking procedure at the start of three separate sessions. Craving levels, me asured repeatedly during the next 3 h of no smoking, were significantly low er after rapid smoking than after either self-paced or no smoking. Measures of subsequent smoking behavior (latency to first cigarette, number of ciga rettes, number of puffs) did not differ systematically across conditions. T hus, craving was reliably suppressed by aversive rapid smoking, but craving scores did not predict actual smoking behavior.