Production of smoking urges through imagery: The impact of affect and smoking abstinence

This study investigated the impact of manipulations of affect and abstinence on urges to smoke produced through an imagery paradigm. One hundred smokers imagined audiotaped scripts describing positive affect and smoking urges, positive affect alone, negative affect and smoking urges, negative affect alone, neutral affect and smoking urges, and neutral affect alone. Each volunteer participated in 2 sessions scheduled 6 or 24 hr apart, and half the volunteers refrained from smoking over their intersession interval. Imagery produced effects in physiological responses, self-reported mood, and verbal reports of smoking urges as a function of the urge and affective content of the scripts. In Session 2, 6 or 24 hr of abstinence produced a generalized increase in urge report but no evidence of any selective increases in urge, mood, or physiological reactivity as a function of explicit urge or mood content of the scripts. The implications of these results for contemporary models of drug urges are discussed.