Using self-efficacy judgments to predict characteristics of lapses to smoking

According to relapse prevention theory. abstinence self-efficacy judgments (ASE: confidence in ability to abstain from smoking) about particular affective and envirornmental contexts should predict behavior in these contexts. Low-ASE contexts should present challenges to abstinence. In this study. the authors used profile correlations to quantify the relationship between context-specific ASE ratings and the characteristics of lapse episodes, To assess the distinctiveness of this relationship, they also correlated the situations surrounding temptation and randomly selected (nontemptation) episodes with context-specific ASE. The ASE-first lapse profile correlation was significantly greater than zero and significantly greater than ASE-temptation and ASE-nontemptation correlations. This pattern of results remained when multiple lapse episodes were considered. Thus, low-ASE contexts tend to be associated with lapses to smoking.