Contrary to our second hypothesis, the self-report retrospective questionnaire and in-session ratings results suggest that relapsers and abstainers experience comparable levels of postquit negative affect and craving. Furthermore, postquit COR EMG did not differ by EOT group status. These results fail to support previous work by our lab (Blalock et al., 2008) and others (Carey et al., 1993; Cohen & Lichtenstein, 1990) that found increased self-report negative affect for relapsers compared to abstainers. Given that the relapsers’ rates of smoking never returned to baseline levels, both relapsers and abstainers were likely experiencing some degree of withdrawal, suggesting that these self-report measures were sensitive to the pharmacological properties of nicotine (i.e., loss of negative reinforcement). However, we cannot rule out whether cognitively mediated evaluations had some effect on the self-report measures, as one might have expected differences in negative affect and craving between relapsers and abstainers, given the differences between the two groups in postquit nicotine usage.
