"A cigarette a day keeps the goodies away": smokers show automatic approach tendencies for smoking--but not for food-related stimuli.

ABSTRACT: Smoking leads to the development of automatic tendencies that promote approach behavior toward smoking-related stimuli which in turn may maintain addictive behavior. The present study examined whether automatic approach tendencies toward smoking-related stimuli can be measured by using an adapted version of the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT). Given that progression of addictive behavior has been associated with a decreased reactivity of the brain reward system for stimuli signaling natural rewards, we also used the AAT to measure approach behavior toward natural rewarding stimuli in smokers. During the AAT, 92 smokers and 51 non-smokers viewed smoking-related vs. non-smoking-related pictures and pictures of natural rewards (i.e. highly palatable food) vs. neutral pictures. They were instruc

SUBMITTER: Machulska A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4333198 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature