14 DAY TRIAL // During young adulthood, smokers are very likely to display two very distinct and recognizable behaviors, impulsivity and neuroticism. If they quit smoking, they have a very high chance of getting rid of these harmful behaviors, a new investigation shows.
Personality improvements are very likely to occur across the board, say investigators at the University of Missouri, who conducted the research. Andrew Littlefield, a PhD student in the Missouri Department of Psychology, says that many teens tend to become impulsive when they smoke.
He explains that the children do not tend to thinks things or activities through when they do them. Furthermore, they have the inclination to accept and seek out short-term, immediate gratification, and not take into account the consequences in the long-term.
Even when it comes to smoking, they still apply the same type of behavior, the researcher explains. Children do it anyway, although by their ages the fact that smoking is bad has been clearly imprinted in their minds, PsychCentral reports.
“However, we find individuals who show the most decreases in impulsivity also are more likely quit smoking. If we can target anti-smoking efforts at that impulsivity, it may help the young people stop smoking,” Littlefield explains.
He adds that the new study was carried out on people aged between 18 and 35. Some of the test participants had quit smoking, whereas the others still had not. In the case of smokers who were young adults, the team determined that impulsivity and neuroticism were prevalent.
Generally, experts define impulsivity as the tendency to act without thinking about the consequences, while neuroticism is defined as being emotionally negative and anxious as a natural state of mind.
If people quit smoking between the ages of 18 and 25, then they had the highest chance of experiencing a sharp drop in instances pertaining to the two types of behaviors. Older subjects displayed a smaller reduction, but still statistically significant.
“Smokers at age 18 had higher impulsivity rates than non-smokers at age 18, and those who quit tended to display the steepest declines in impulsivity between ages 18 and 25. However, as a person ages and continues to smoke, smoking becomes part of a regular behavior pattern and less impulsive,” Littlefield says.
“The motives for smoking later in life – habit, craving, loss of control and tolerance – are key elements of smoking dependence and appear to be more independent of personality traits,” he concludes.
Details of the new study will appear in a paper entitled “Smoking Desistance and Personality Change in Emerging and Young Adulthood,” which will be published in an upcoming issue of the medical journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.