Carson Moore

Author: Carson Moore | Major: Psychological Science | Semester: Fall 2022

I’m Carson Moore- a senior Psychological Science major seeking minors in Communication and Gender Studies. I am currently doing my thesis in Dr. Zabelina’s MoCCA Lab. After graduating in the spring, I plan on going to graduate school for Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

Despite awareness about the harmful effects of chronic smoking behavior, there is a significant lack of smoking cessation techniques and treatments available to the public. I wanted to do my thesis on a real world problem, and this was the perfect opportunity. My thesis examines mindfulness as a potential smoking cessation technique for chronic smokers. In previous studies, mindfulness training is shown to reduce smoking cravings and consumption. Separately, both mindfulness and episodic future thinking (EFT) have been shown to reduce impulsivity and delay discounting- two common behaviors in chronic smoking.

Thus, my primary focus within the study was on the effect of EFT and mindfulness on motivation to quit smoking in a real-world setting. To do this, I got to work with Stephanie Kane, one of our lab’s doctoral students, on her study on EFT and chronic smoking behavior.

A large focus of this study was to make sure we collected data in a real-world setting. Real world data boosts ecological validity because it assesses individuals in their environment. It was especially important for our study specifically because EFT had only been previously effective in reducing smoking consumption in laboratory settings. To collect real world (EMA) data, participants across Arkansas were asked to download an app on their phone and respond to five notifications a day for one week based on their experimental condition. They took an initial survey on Qualtrics that gave us a baseline mindfulness score using the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire. Finally, each night participants logged the number of cigarettes they had each day and were asked three questions on their momentary motivation to quit smoking.

Our participants were placed in one of two conditions, either EFT or episodic recent thinking (ERT). EFT and ERT have participants simulate either future or recent events by describing the event. For example, participants were asked to simulate one day, one week, one month, one year, or five years in the future or recent past. I predicted that those in the EFT condition with a higher mindfulness score would have a greater aggregate motivation to quit smoking.

There were several variables involved in this study, making it complicated to run especially since our participants were never in a setting we could regulate. The first challenge with this project was figuring out the variables I wanted to use alongside EFT. Finding the background for mindfulness as a smoking cessation technique took a lot of creativity and collaboration with my mentors. Then, I had to find ways mindfulness and EFT are connected in research. Overall, this took the longest to accomplish.

Currently, Stephanie and I are in the process of data analysis. At this time, our data does not present a strong relationship between EFT, mindfulness, and motivation to quit smoking. Despite this challenge, I am continuing to explore other variables that might be related to mindfulness and chronic smoking behavior. Our next steps are to look at the relationship between the number of cigarettes participants smoke per day and how many days they have participated in the study.

Overall, the hardest part of my thesis so far has been actually writing it. In conducting and writing about research, I have learned there are times where I need to be precise and times where I just need to put words down on the paper. In most cases, the best thing for me to do when facing a problem writing has been to work on a different section.

The Honors College Research Grant enabled me to take time this semester that I wouldn’t have had otherwise to focus on my thesis. With that extra time, the process of working on my thesis has been a lot more rewarding. I am extremely grateful to the Honors College for that opportunity. Additionally, I have heavily relied on support from Dr. Zabelina and Stephanie Kane to work on this project.