Procedure

Participants were recruited as part of a larger study on adolescent smoking cessation (N = 233). The current analysis examines a subsample of the larger sample (n = 154; see data preparation section) and examines ad libitum smoking prior to making a quit attempt. Participants initially reported to the lab where they were trained in the use of a hand-held personal computer (the Teen Electronic Diary [TED]). During this initial appointment, participants completed a series of paper-and-pencil assessments and reported demographic information. They were scheduled for follow-up sessions and left with the TED. At a future session, participants completed the smoking Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a measure of explicit smoking attitudes. The future session often occurred within 24 hours of the first session, but not always. Most participants carried the TED for at least one day prior to administration of the IAT (M = 1.54 days, SD = 1.22, Range = 0-7). For the current analysis, we exclude all EMA assessments prior to completing the IAT lab session (including those on the lab session day prior to the lab session; but not after the lab session). Thus, the IAT was assessed prior to all EMA data. This resulted in the removal of 560 momentary assessments (M = 3.64/subject). After the IAT lab assessment, adolescents continued carrying the TED for a number of ad libitum smoking days leading up to a quit attempt. All data presented were collected prior to the quit attempt.

Participants were told that the purpose of the current study was to better understand what happens to adolescents when they try to quit smoking. At the initial lab session, adolescents were trained on the use of the TED. They completed sample assessments and were able to ask any questions. They returned after the first day of using the TED, discussed their experiences with lab personnel, and completed measures of salivary cotinine and CO. Participants returned for a third visit between one and three days after the second visit for another lab check-in. During this visit, participants again completed measures of CO and salivary cotinine (as well as measures of quitting self-efficacy not examined here). In total, participants met with research staff six times over the course of the entire three-week study.

There were two types of assessments completed on the EMA device: random assessments and self-initiated smoking assessments. Random assessments were signaled throughout the day during groupings of three-hour block time intervals (i.e., 0:00–3:00, 3:00–6:00, 6:00–9:00, 9:00–12:00, 12:00–15:00, 15:00–18:00, 18:00–21:00, 21:00–24:00). Participants also self-initiated assessments just prior to smoking. Identical affect items were presented at both the random and self-initiated smoking assessments. Two previous manuscripts have been published from this data, however, these manuscripts did not examine the role of implicit attitude; further detail on methods are available here (see Hoeppner, Kahler, & Gwaltney, 2014; Roberts, Bidwell, Colby, & Gwaltney, 2015).