Smokers use cigarettes to cope with distress, conference hears

SMOKERS ARE poorly equipped to deal with distress without resorting to cigarettes because of their implicit belief that smoking helps them to deal with difficult feelings, a conference for psychologists was told yesterday.

Nigel Vahey of NUI Maynooth said research had found that a key psychological component of tobacco-dependence involved the implicit belief that smoking was an effective way of regulating unpalatable feelings.

“In other words, to the degree that smokers implicitly believe that smoking can enhance their enjoyment and reduce their distress, then they are more likely to engage in smoking as a means of controlling and coping with fluctuating feelings throughout the day,” he said.

Smoking was used as a way to avoid dealing with painful thoughts and emotions but this was unproductive as it did not make those feelings go away permanently.

“Such people who smoke to regulate their feelings, whether consciously or unconsciously, become very poorly equipped to cope with distress of any sort without recourse to smoking,” Mr Vahey said.

This made quitting even more difficult.

“Smokers must not only cope with biological cravings for nicotine, but must also learn to cope with distressing feelings in more productive ways.”

He said treatment that dealt with this issue was more successful long term than nicotine replacement therapy or other medications.

Mr Vahey was speaking at the Psychological Society of Ireland’s annual conference which ended yesterday in Tullow, Co Carlow.

Earlier, the conference heard a call for proper training for juries in cyber-crime cases.

Dr Gráinne Kirwan, lecturer on forensic cyberpsychology, said there was confusion among potential jurors concerning the methods and motives used by hackers.

Expert evidence has often left the jury confused and some potential jurors seemed unsure as to what constituted hacking, she added.

Preliminary findings from her research were that juries were more likely to convict computer hackers if they thought that the hacking was done for money.

If a hacker was thought to be motivated by altruistic reasons, then he or she was less likely to be convicted, “even though the eventual cost to the victim is the same”.