Improved personality can be side effect of quitting smoking

By Catherine Walker

When young adults quit smoking personality improvements may also occur, according to a new research study.

The study ‘Smoking Desistance and Personality Change in Emerging and Young Adulthood’ was conducted by the University of Missouri and has been accepted by the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

‘The data indicate that for some young adults smoking is impulsive’ said Andrew Littlefield, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Missouri. ‘That means that 18-year-olds are acting without a lot of forethought and favour immediate rewards over long-term negative consequences. They might say ‘I know smoking is bad for me but I’m going to do it anyway’.’

‘However, we find individuals who show the most decreases in impulsivity also are more likely to quit smoking. If we can target anti-smoking efforts at that impulsivity it may help the young people stop smoking,’ Littlefield added.

Researchers compared people aged 18-35, who smoked with those who had quit smoking. They discovered that the individuals who smoked were higher in two different personality traits during young adulthood:

Impulsivity – acting without thinking about the consequences
Neuroticism – being emotionally negative and anxious, most of the time

Similarly, those with higher levels of impulsivity and neuroticism were more likely to take part in harmful behaviours such as smoking. Littlefield also found that those who stopped smoking had the largest declines in impulsivity and neuroticism from the ages of 18-25.

‘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,’ Littlefield said. ‘However as a person ages and continues to smoke, smoking becomes part of a regular behaviour pattern and less impulsive.’

‘The motives for smoking later in life, habit, craving, loss of control and intolerance, are key elements of smoking dependence and appear to be more independent of personality traits. Despite the evidence from this study, substance use is still a complex relationship of genetic and environmental factors,’ Littlefield concluded.

Source: University of Missouri