Differences in alienation were most robust, with an adjusted effect size of nearly more than 4 T-score units. The relationship between alienation and persistence of smoking was consistent with studies showing that higher trait hostility (a closely related construct) predicts persistence of smoking (Brummett et al., 2002; Lipkus, Barefoot, Williams, & Siegler, 1994) and a lower likelihood of maintaining abstinence following smoking cessation treatment (Kahler, Spillane, Leventhal, 2009; Kahler, Strong, Niaura, & Brown, 2004). We speculate that alienated individuals, who view themselves as victimized and unlucky, are less apt to sustain changes in health-promoting behaviors because they view their behavior and health as outside of their personal control, consistent with a health beliefs model.
The fact that current and former smokers differed on harm avoidance even after we controlled for lifetime psychiatric disorders suggests that those who continue to smoke are less risk averse than are those who have quit, consistent with recent evidence that the closely related trait of sensation seeking is associated with poor outcome in smoking treatment (Kahler, Spillane, Metrik, Leventhal, & Monti, in press). Overall, we found few differences in the personality profiles of former smokers and never-smokers. Although former smokers scored significantly higher on alienation and control (effect sizes of ca. 2 T-score units), these differences were not significant when we controlled for psychiatric disorders. Terracciano and Costa (2004) found that, compared with never-smokers, former smokers scored lower on conscientiousness and higher on neuroticism.
That investigation did not account for the effect of psychiatric disorders. The present study extends these findings by indicating that relatively small differences in personality between former smokers and never-smokers may be due in part to differences in lifetime Dacomitinib psychiatric conditions. When lifetime smokers were grouped by whether they had ever met criteria for tobacco dependence, we found no significant differences in personality profiles, with the exception of stress reaction, which was higher among those with a history of dependence, an effect that was robust when we controlled for lifetime psychiatric history, despite the relatively strong association between stress reaction and major depression (r=.37). This result is consistent with the findings of Breslau et al. (1993), who showed that measures of negative emotionality were associated more strongly with tobacco dependence than with nondependent smoking, an effect that was robust to controlling for psychiatric history. Negative emotionality may serve as a common risk factor for both major depression and smoking (Breslau, Kilbey, & Andreski, 1994).