Abstainers reported significant increases in both positive and negative affect across the postcessation sessions. The findings suggest that while abstainers may feel positive and encouraged about their quitting progress, they were not immune to experiencing subjective negative affective symptoms. Compared with control participants, smokers assigned to the treatment group, regardless of their abstinence status, reported a significant increase in self-reported anxiety across the postcessation sessions. Anxiety is a symptom of nicotine withdrawal and previous studies (e.g., Hughes, Higgins, & Bickel, 1994) have found, as we did in the current study, that when smokers tried to quit, they experienced a transient increase in anxiety. However, it is unclear why the current study failed to find an increase in other withdrawal symptoms (e.g., sleep difficulties, lack of concentration) as measured by the WSWS.
