The role of smoking inflexibility/avoidance in the relation between anxiety sensitivity and tobacco use and beliefs among treatment-seeking smokers

Item does not contain fulltextRecent scholarly attention has focused on explicating the nature of tobacco use among anxiety-vulnerable smokers. Anxiety sensitivity (fear of aversive internal anxiety states) is a cognitive-affective individual difference factor related to the development and maintenance of anxiety symptoms and disorders and various smoking processes. The present study examined the cross-sectional associations between anxiety sensitivity and a range of cognitive and behavioral smoking processes, and the mediating role of the tendency to respond inflexibly and with avoidance in the presence of smoking-related distress (i.e., avoidance and inflexibility to smoking [AIS]) in such relations. Participants (n = 466) were treatment-seeking daily tobacco smokers recruited as part of a larger tobacco cessation study. Baseline (pretreatment) data were utilized. Self-report measures were used to assess anxiety sensitivity, AIS, and 4 criterion variables: barriers to smoking cessation, quit attempt history, severity of problematic symptoms reported in past quit attempts, and mood-management smoking expectancies. Results indicated that anxiety sensitivity was indirectly related to greater barriers to cessation, greater number of prior quit attempts and greater mood-management smoking expectancies through the tendency to respond inflexibly/avoid to the presence of distressing smoking-related thoughts, feelings, and internal sensations; but not severity of problems experienced while quitting. The presen

Exercise self-efficacy moderates the relation between anxiety sensitivity and body mass index and exercise tolerance in treatment-seeking smokers

There is little known about factors that contribute to the comorbidity of cigarette smoking and obesity. The current study sought to test whether exercise self-efficacy moderated the relation between anxiety sensitivity (fear of internal sensations) and BMI and exercise tolerance among cigarette smokers. Smokers (n = 72; 50% female; Mcpd = 19.3, SD = 10.65) were recruited to participate in a smoking cessation treatment trial. During medical screen, we measured weight, height, and exercise tolerance (functional capacity) employing a standardized maximal exercise testing protocol. After adjusting for participant sex and cigarettes per day, exercise self-efficacy moderated the association between anxiety sensitivity and BMI, such that the positive association between anxiety sensitivity and BMI was significantly stronger when exercise self-efficacy was low. The same pattern of results emerged for exercise tolerance. Exercise self-efficacy moderated the association between anxiety sensitivity and exercise tolerance, such that the negative association between anxiety sensitivity and exercise tolerance was significantly stronger when exercise self-efficacy was low. Among smokers, anxiety sensitivity may be a risk variable that, directly and indirectly in the context of low self-efficacy for exercise, causes or maintains higher body weight and lower exercise tolerance

Understanding Interpersonal Trust in a Confucian-Influenced Society: An Exploratory Study

10.1177/1470595805054493International Journal of Cross Cultural Management52197-21