Different cigarette-smoker classification factors and subjective state in acute abstinence

On each of 4 days after abstaining from cigarettes and other psychoactive materials for at least 10 h, 48 male cigarette smokers reported their mood before smoking the first cigarette of the day. Smokers were classified both by relative desire for smoking in situations inducive of high arousal or low arousal and by average daily consumption. Greater relative desire for smoking in high-arousal situations was associated with an abstinence syndrome of dysphoria. Compared to smokers with low consumption, medium-heavy smokers showed higher levels of tension-anxiety and were less deactivated while at the same time they were more fatigued and sleepy, indicating different relationships with different components of multifactorial arousal. Effects related to levels of cigarette consumption may have been confounded by tea/coffee withdrawal, however, abstinence states disappeared on smoking.