How hard is it (to help smokers) to quit smoking? Measuring and modifying smoking-related cognitive biases in smokers

Helping smokers to quit smoking is one of the effective ways to reduce smoking-related health, economic, and social burdens. The primary aim of this dissertation was to apply a new type of cognitive training, called Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM), as a tool to help people with smoking cessation. Specifically, three intervention studies were conducted to investigate (1) whether combining two varieties of web-based CBM, being Attentional Bias Modification (AtBM) and Approach Bias Modification (ApBM), would augment the effects of CBM on smoking cessation, (2) whether ApBM would help Chinese smokers to reduce smoking, and (3) whether a modified design of ApBM (i.e., ApBM+) would improve the effects of ApBM on smoking cessation. Based on the data collected in this project, the secondary aim of this dissertation was to explore (4) whether there was an intervention user segmentation for further tailoring of web-based smoking interventions (including CBM) to prevent intervention attrition and improve intervention usage and effectiveness. In summary, the three intervention studies together did not support the potential effects of CBM as a tool for helping people with smoking cessation; the smoker profiling study showed that there were three subtypes of smokers that could be used for guiding intervention tailoring. The future research directions included that implementing CBM for preventing relapse; choosing an appropriate control condition to test the effects of CBM; increasing the reliability of cognitive biases measures to correctly investigate the mechanism of CBM; re-understanding the mechanism of CBM; and improving the accessibility and user-experience of CBM intervention programs.