Individual differences in cardiac and EMG activity after smoking

Abstract

Smoking has well-known effects on heart rate and muscle activity. The influence of individual difference factors such as gender and personality characteristics, however, are not as well-known. This study examined the effects of smoking on heart rate and muscle activity and tested for differential changes due to gender and personality characteristics that are related to arousal experience and preference. Heart rate and forearm muscle activity were measured from 25 male and 25 female smokers while they performed a continuous motor performance task under three smoking conditions: deprived for at least 4 h, sham smoking for 5 min and smoking one of their own cigarettes for 5 min. Subjects were assigned to groups based on the Paratelic Dominance Scale, a measure of preference for arousal seeking (paratelic dominant) vs arousal avoidance (telic dominant). Smoking increased heart rate more for paratelic than for telic dominant subjects; there were no gender-related differences. EMG activity was higher when telic compared to paratelic dominant subjects were deprived from smoking and smoking decreased EMG activity more for telic than for paratelic dominant subjects. No differences were found for extraverts vs introverts.