The effects of stereotype threat on smoking behavior
Abstracts
Initial Award Abstract |
Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the United States, responsible for approximately 438,000 deaths annually (2005). Although the federal government’s health goal is to reduce the smoking prevalence among adults to less than 12% by the year 2010, 23% of the US adult population continues to smoke (Trosclair et al., 2005). Thus, there is reason to believe that those who continue to smoke despite policy changes, public health campaigns, and systemic health care efforts towards reducing smoking rates may represent more chronic and hard to treat cases. As a result, it is a public health priority to continue to uncover barriers to smoking cessation. In the present research we examine an important barrier to tobacco control that has yet to be considered: Stereotype threat.
There are many negative stereotypes that tend to be associated with smoking and smokers. In addition, smokers report feeling as though they are stigmatized for their smoking behaviors. As a result, smokers should be at risk for the psychological concept of stereotype threat, which is a concern about fulfilling negative stereotypes. Stereotype threat occurs when cues in the environment make salient negative stereotypes. Almost two decades of research demonstrates that theses concerns about fulfilling negative serve to increase anxiety and undermine one’s self-control resources, and thus their ability to carry out behavior change.
Social psychological research on stereotype threat suggests that smoking stigma should increase risk for stereotype threat and in turn undermine quit attempts. The proposed program of research will test the hypothesis that stereotype threat will increase anxiety (which tends to increase cravings) and undermine self-control resources for smokers, thereby limiting the very resources smokers need to successfully follow-through on treatment seeking and quit attempts. Thus, likely outcomes of stereotype threat include increased tobacco cravings and cigarette consumption. The proposed study combines stereotype threat models with controlled human laboratory paradigms to understand the effects of stereotype threat on smoking behavior.
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Publications
| Predictors of smoking lapse in a human laboratory paradigm |
| Periodical: Psychopharmacology |
Index Medicus: |
| Authors: Roche, D. J. O., Bujarski, S., Moallem, N. R., Guzman, I. Y., Shapiro, J. R., & Ray, L. A. |
ART |
| Yr: 2014 |
Vol: 231 |
Nbr: |
Abs: |
Pg: 2889-2897 |
| Predictors of smoking lapse in a human laboratory paradigm |
| Periodical: Psychopharmacology |
Index Medicus: |
| Authors: Roche, D. J. O., Bujarski, S., Moallem, N. R., Guzman, I. Y., Shapiro, J. R., & Ray, L. A. |
ART |
| Yr: 2014 |
Vol: 231 |
Nbr: |
Abs: |
Pg: 2889-2897 |
