Abstract
A questionnaire concerning interactions between the need to smoke and the external situation was used to select 8 “low-arousal smokers” and 8 “high-arousal smokers.” The former were smokers who generally experienced their strongest need to smoke in low-arousal situations, characterized by e.g., monotony or boredom, while the latter experienced their strongest need to smoke in high-arousal situations, characterized by, e.g., anxiety or excitement. Members of each group were examined under smoking and nonsmoking conditions in a low-arousal situation, i.e., performing a vigilance-type sensorimotor task, and in a high-arousal situation, i.e., performing a complex sensorimotor task. It was shown that the two groups reacted differently to smoking in the two situations. In low-arousal smokers performance and general well-being were favourably affected by smoking in the low-arousal situation only. Conversely, performance and well-being of the high-arousal smokers were enhanced by smoking in the high-arousal situation only.