Cognitive avoidance as a method of coping with a provocative smoking cue: The moderating effect of nicotine dependence

Both nicotine dependence and coping are important determinants of smoking c essation, yet little is understood about mechanisms that link the two. This laboratory study investigated how nicotine dependence moderates execution of an avoidance coping strategy. High and low dependent smokers were expose d to a provocative smoking cue (in vivo) under two instructional sets: cogn itive avoidance coping and no coping. Contrary to hypotheses, high dependen t smokers reported greater increases in perceived self-efficacy to nor smok e and also demonstrated greater facility in processing coping/nonsmoking-re lated information on a reaction time task, compared with low dependent smok ers. These counterintuitive findings are discussed in terms of how nicotine dependence may affect the cognitive process of coping.