Development and Validation of the Smoker Self-Stigma Questionnaire.

INTRODUCTION: Researchers have become increasingly concerned with the stigmatizing impact that regulations and policies aimed to curve down cigarette smoking may have on smokers. Given the lack of psychometrically validated tools available to assess smoking stigma, we developed and evaluated the Smoker Self-Stigma Questionnaire (SSSQ). AIMS AND METHODS: A total of 592 smokers recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) completed an online, Qualtrics survey that included 45 items developed and vetted by tobacco-research experts. The items were assigned a priori to three, theoretical stigma factors or domains (enacted, felt, and internalized). We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the responses from one-half of the participants with the goal of distilling the 45-item pool to an 18-item instrument with 6 items per factor. A promising, 18-item, three-factor measure was then cross-validated with the second half of the sample. RESULTS: The second CFA yielded excellent fit indices, as well as adequate and significant factor loadings. Subscale scores obtained from the separated factors differentially predicted nicotine dependence and motivation to quit cigarettes, providing convergent and discriminant validity for the SSSQ and its proposed, three-factor structure. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the SSSQ fills an important research gap by providing a psychometrically sound measure that investigators can use to study smoking stigma. IMPLICATIONS: Prior research on smoking self-stigma has used a wide variety of psychometrically invalid measures and reported inconsistent findings. This is the first study that presents a measure of smoking self-stigma that is not a merely and arbitrary adaptation of a mental illness stigma measure, but that is theoretically driven and created from a large and comprehensive pool of items vetted by tobacco-research experts. Having demonstrated and then cross-validated its excellent psychometric properties, the SSSQ provides the field with a promising tool to assess, investigate, and replicate the causes and effects of smoking self-stigma.

Relapse of operant behavior after response elimination with an extinction or an omission contingency.

The present study compared relapse after responding was eliminated by extinction or omission training in rats. In Experiment 1, lever pressing was reinforced with food pellets in Context A and then eliminated with either extinction or omission training in Context B. The response was then tested in Contexts A and B in either the presence or absence of free food pellets delivered on a random time schedule. All rats showed higher responding when tested in Context A than Context B, and there was little evidence that omission training attenuated this ABA renewal effect. Noncontingent pellets increased responding after extinction but not after omission. However, when responding on the last day of response elimination was compared to responding during the test in the response-elimination context, there was some evidence that omission-trained rats showed a small increase in responding even when tested with free pellets. Results of Experiment 2 suggest this increase was not due to differences in the temporal distribution of pellets during elimination and the test, and that the result might be due to mere removal of the omission contingency, but any such effect is small and difficult to detect statistically. The results provide new information about factors generating relapse after omission training.

RELT induces cellular death in HEK 293 epithelial cells.

RELT is a recently identified Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor that possess two homologues in humans named RELL1 and RELL2. We investigated whether RELT and its homologues could induce cellular death when transiently transfected into HEK 293 epithelial cells. Transfection of RELT family members into HEK 293 epithelial cells induced cell death characterized by rounding and lifting of cells accompanied by DNA fragmentation, characteristics that are consistent with the activation of an apoptotic pathway. Overexpression of RELT in COS-7 cells resulted in cell rounding and lifting without DNA fragmentation, suggesting that the effects of RELT signaling may vary among different cell types. In summary, we report that overexpression of RELT or its homologues RELL1 and RELL2 in HEK 293 epithelial cells results in cell death with morphological characteristics consistent with the activation of an apoptotic pathway.