The influence of smoker status, smoking history, sex, and situational variables on smokers' self-efficacy.

Recent work in smoking cessation has focused on cognitive factors related to relapse and maintenance. The present investigation utilized an established self-efficacy-based questionnaire to determine whether sex, length of smoking history, successful quitting attempts, and environmental events affected subjects' perceived confidence of resisting smoking urges. It was hypothesized that: (a) subjects with fewer years smoking would have higher self-efficacy than those smoking for longer periods; (b) reported self-efficacy would be lowest for those situations involving negative moods; and (c) successful quitters would report higher self-efficacy than unsuccessful quitters. The second and third hypotheses were strongly confirmed, and a nonsignificant tendency in the expected direction was found for the first hypothesis. The results were generally consistent with the self-efficacy and the Abstinence Violation Effect (AVE) models.