Value change and relapse following a decision to quit or reduce smoking.

People sometimes find it hard to regulate thet aclions. The difficulty is frequently caused by the co.flict belween templations of easily and quickly available rewards and long-term commitments assumed to iead to larger rewards that are more difficult 1(J obtain and slower in comif,8People olten make decisions to try 10 achieve such longterm 8oals, but they fail especially when they are under emotional stress. Many examples of such -nlures have been demonstrated in work on vanous vddictive b€haviors such as smokins. drue addjction and alcoholism, and also i. the field of obesity (Sjdbers. 1980). There are several competing explanations as '. why people fail in achievins their lons-term soals. -J i tberg ( ls80r \ugge' red rhat emot ional sr re, \ br inB" about a nore pnmitive level of cognitive function ine shich cau.e. d i \ tor ted rea 'oning leadrnB. in tum, to decisions to break commitments. Madatt and Gordon (1979) suggested, on the othe. hand, that relapses should b€ seen as instrumental responses whicb have the tunction of removing or mitigating emotionally aversive slates due to emotional str€ss. A similar model for snokiDs was proposed by r-eventhal and Cleary (1980). As poinled out by Sjitbers and Olsson (1981), this explanalion fails lo account for cases where the hedonic tone of lhe emotional stress is positive. Such cases are sometimes reponed 10 lead to relapse. The opponenr-process theory of motivalion fomulated by Solonon (1980) has also been used to account for relap\€ by sugSesting lhar discontinualion of an addiclive habir lead5 to an a\ersive stale which is then removed iostrumentally by taking up tbe addictive habit againThis theory does not expiain relapse under posilive emotional states and also fails to account for relapse occurring long after tbe acute phase of aversive abstinence symptoms ofter encountered by addicts. Ii is conmoily assumed that decisions reflect values. It is th€refore not surprising that value chanse should be suggested as one possible explanation or felapse. Ainslie (1975) suggested a model for value chanse, here called lhe Value Model, which would account for r€laps€. In laler papers h€ has discussed funher the application of this moi le l ro ranou5 form, of addic l ive behar ior5 (Ainslie, 1980i Ainslie & Schaefer, 1980). Ainslie U niretsity o! G nkbotg, S \rede n