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. 2013 Aug;38(8):2388-91.
doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2013.03.007. Epub 2013 Mar 21.

Smoking and social anxiety: the roles of gender and smoking motives

Julia D Buckner  1 , Christine Vinci
Affiliations

Smoking and social anxiety: the roles of gender and smoking motives

Julia D Buckner et al. Addict Behav. 2013 Aug.

Abstract

Although social anxiety appears to be a risk factor for smoking and nicotine dependence, little work has identified factors that may play a role in these relationships. The current study examined the role of gender and smoking motives in these relationships among 945 (73.0% female) undergraduates, 91 of whom were current daily smokers. Among women, social anxiety was related to daily smoking status, whereas it was related to dependence severity among men. After controlling for past-week smoking frequency, social anxiety was related to affiliative attachment and behavioral choice-melioration smoking motives. Both motives mediated the relationship between social anxiety and nicotine dependence severity, although affiliative attachment motives uniquely mediated this relationship. Results suggest that socially anxious individuals who view cigarettes as having some of the same characteristics as social interactions may be particularly vulnerable to more severe nicotine dependence. Results also highlight the importance of considering gender in the relationships between social anxiety and smoking behaviors.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

Both authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Standardized direct effects and fit statistics for mediational models for Affiliative Attachment Motives (Model A), Behavioral Choice-melioration Motives (Model B), and Affiliative Attachment and Behavioral Choice-melioration Motives combined (Model C) among Daily Smokers. *p=.06, ** p < .01, *** p < .001
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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