A study shows that cigarette smokers, cigar smokers and non-smokers each have distinct personality profiles.
- People who smoke have lower scores on conscientiousness and agreeableness and higher scores on extraversion.
- Cigar smokers tend to score higher on personality tests for openness and lower on neuroticism, compared to cigarette smokers.
- “Personality traits are antecedents of smoking behavior, which has implications for targeted public health interventions.”
“Tobacco use remains a global public health challenge, responsible for more than 8 million deaths per year, including those attributed to exposure to second-hand smoke. (…) While the physiological risks of smoking, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, are well documented, new research highlights the critical role of psychological factors, including personality traits, in shaping tobacco use patterns,” said researchers from the Universidade Catolica Portuguesa (Portugal) and Western Governors University (United States).
Smokers are more outgoing, but less conscientious and agreeable
In recent research, they wanted to explore this question further by examining the association between the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) and smoking a cigar or cigarette. To carry out the work, published in the journal Plos Onethey recruited 9,918 older adults from 11 European countries. Participants completed a questionnaire about their personality, and the team then compared these profiles with the volunteers’ smoking status and preferences, distinguishing between cigarette smokers, cigar smokers and non-smokers.
According to the results, smoking was associated with lower scores on conscientiousness and agreeableness and higher scores on extraversion than not smoking. The authors speculate that relatively low levels of conscientiousness among smokers may reflect a lack of self-discipline, consideration of long-term health risks, and more impulsive behaviors, while reduced levels of agreeableness may explain why smokers often persist in smoking despite social disapproval. The higher extraversion observed may suggest that these individuals enjoy the social nature of smoking.
“Personality traits are antecedents of smoking behavior”
The authors found that cigar smokers tended to score higher on personality tests for openness and lower on neuroticism, compared to their cigarette-smoking counterparts. “These findings suggest that personality traits are antecedents of smoking behavior, which has implications for targeted public health interventions and social policies aimed at combating the global tobacco epidemic.”
Future research should explore these links in younger cohorts, the scientists say, which could help develop early intervention strategies to prevent smoking initiation based on predisposition to certain personality types. Further work could also expand the scope to include other forms of tobacco products, such as chewing tobacco, or more recent smoking trends, such as e-cigarettes.
