Desire thinking across the continuum of nicotine dependence

Introduction: Desire thinking is a voluntary cognitive process involving verbal and imaginal elaboration of a desired target. Recent research has highlighted the role of desire thinking in the maintenance of addictive disorders over and above that of other psychological antecedents including negative affect and urges. The goal of this research project was to explore the role of desire thinking across the continuum of nicotine dependence. Method: A sample of 156 smokers recruited from the general population completed measures of negative affect, smoking urges, desire thinking and nicotine dependence. Results: Individuals high on nicotine dependence reported significantly higher scores on desire thinking dimensions controlling for age, gender, negative affect and smoking urges. In addition, the verbal perseveration component of desire thinking was the strongest predictor of nicotine dependence independently of negative affect and smoking urges across the nicotine dependence spectrum. Conclusions: Findings suggest that desire thinking may be a risk factor for nicotine dependence and that cognitive-behavioural interventions for treating nicotine dependence may benefit from targeting specifically desire thinking.