Assessing Cigarette Craving With a Squeeze. (May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Creswell, Kasey G.; Sayette, Michael A.; Skrzynski, Carillon J.; Wright, Aidan G. C.; Schooler, Jonathan W.; Sehic, Ela
• Is Part Of: Clinical psychological science. Volume 7:Number 3(2019)
• Page Start: 597
• Page End: 611
• Publication Date: 2019-05
• Subjects: craving -- urge to smoke -- visceral states -- cue exposure -- smoking behavior -- drug/substance abuse -- nonverbal behavior -- open materials; Clinical psychology -- Periodicals; 616.89
• DOI: 10.1177/2167702618815464
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2167-7026

Abstract

We evaluated the utility of a nonverbal, "visceral" measure of cigarette craving (squeezing a handheld dynamometer). Nicotine-deprived daily smokers ( N = 202) underwent a cued (lit cigarette) cigarette-craving manipulation and recorded smoking urge in one of four conditions: (a) report urge using a traditional self-report rating scale (verbal measure) and then indicate urge by squeezing a dynamometer, (b) indicate urge by squeezing and then report urge verbally, (c) indicate urge only by squeezing, or (d) report urge only verbally. As hypothesized, the squeeze measure detected increases in urge during cue exposure, correlated with verbal urge, and predicted subsequent smoking motivation as indexed by smoking latency. Order effects were not observed, indicating that the squeeze measure was predictive of smoking motivation regardless of whether it was administered before or after a verbal urge measure. Squeeze measures may be viable additions to the measurement toolkit for assessing urge and other visceral states.