Sadness, but not all negative emotions, heightens addictive substance use (PNAS)

Do negative feelings in general trigger addictive behavior, or do specific emotions play a stronger role? Testing these alternative accounts of emotion and decision making, we drew on the Appraisal Tendency Framework to predict that sadness, specifically, rather than negative mood, generally, would (a) increase craving, impatience, and actual addictive substance use and (b) do so through mechanisms selectively heightened by sadness. Using a nationally representative, longitudinal survey, Study 1 (N=10,685) revealed that sadness, but not other negative emotions (i.e., fear, anger, shame), reliably predicted current smoking as well as relapsing 20 years later. Study 2 (N=425) used an experimental design, and found further support for emotion specificity: sadness, but not disgust, increased self-reported craving relative to a neutral state. Studies 3-4 (N=918) introduced choice behavior as outcome variables, revealing that sadness causally increased impatience for cigarette puffs. Moreover, Study 4 revealed that the effect of sadness on impatience was more fully explained by concomitant appraisals of self-focus, which are specific to sadness, than by concomitant appraisals of negative valence, which are general to all negative emotions. Importantly, Study 4 also examined the topography of actual smoking behavior, finding that experimentally-induced sadness (as compared to neutral emotion) causally increased the volume and duration of cigarette puffs inhaled. Together, the present studies provide support for a more nuanced model regarding the effects of emotion on tobacco use, in particular, as well as on addictive behavior, in general.

普遍的负面情绪是否引发成瘾行为，抑或特定的情感在其中扮演更重要的角色？为检验这些关于情感与决策制定的替代性解释，我们借鉴了评价倾向框架，预测悲伤（而非普遍的负面情绪）将（a）增加渴望、急躁以及实际成瘾物质的使用，以及（b）通过悲伤所特有的机制实现。通过一项具有全国代表性的纵向调查（样本量N=10,685），我们发现悲伤（而非其他负面情绪，例如恐惧、愤怒、羞耻）可靠地预测了当前的吸烟行为，以及20年后的复吸情况。第二项研究（样本量N=425）采用实验设计，进一步支持了情感特定性的观点：悲伤（而非厌恶）相对于中性状态增加了自我报告的渴望。第三至第四项研究（样本量N=918）将选择行为作为结果变量，揭示了悲伤导致了对吸烟的急躁程度增加。此外，第四项研究还揭示了悲伤对急躁的影响，更多地由与悲伤特异的自我关注评价所解释，而非由普遍适用于所有负面情绪的负面价值评价所解释。重要的是，第四项研究还考察了实际吸烟行为的地形学，发现与中性情绪相比，实验性诱导的悲伤（引发）增加了吸入的香烟量及其持续时间。综上所述，当前的研究为关于情感对烟草使用（尤其是）以及一般成瘾行为影响的更细致模型提供了支持。