Efeitos do tabagismo e de fatores socioeconômicos em múltiplos domínios de autorregulação

• Ano de defesa: 2016
• Autor(a) principal: Antonio, Raquel de Luna [UNIFESP]
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)
• Palavras-chave em Português: Self-regulation; Smoking; Socioeconomic status; Atention; Executive function; Impulsivity; Tabagismo; Nível socioeconômico; Atenção; Funções executivas; Impulsividade; Autorregulação
• Link de acesso: https://sucupira.capes.gov.br/sucupira/public/consultas/coleta/trabalhoConclusao/viewTrabalhoConclusao.jsf?popup=true&id_trabalho=3629599; http://repositorio.unifesp.br/handle/11600/47774

Both smoking and low socioeconomic status (SES) worsen self-regulation, or the ability to control behavior. This study aimed to determine whether people of lower socioeconomic status are more susceptible to the deleterious effects of smoking on self-regulation. In a cross-sectional study including 80 healthy young adults, the performance of smokers (n=40) and non-smokers (n=40) from different socioeconomic backgrounds were compared in terms of hot self-regulation skills, which involve emotional regulation and social behavior, and cold self-regulation, related to activities such as logical reasoning, with less socio-emotional salience. The self-regulatory domains tested here included inhibition, shifting, updating, dual tasking, planning, and access to long-term memory (cold skills); self-reported impulsivity, intertemporal monetary choice and risky behavior (hot skills). Other cognitive domains related to self-regulation investigated here were simple and sustained attention, state stability and working memory capacity. Nicotine withdrawal symptoms and its acute effects were controlled, as well as sex effects, age, body mass index, number of symptoms indicative of psychiatric problems and years of education of the participants. Regardless of socioeconomic status, smokers had worse hot self-regulation, i.e., referred higher impulsivity and discounted monetary rewards more steeply. Exposure to cigarettes, evaluated through the estimated number of cigarettes smoked, exhaled carbon monoxide, cotinine and a measure of nicotine dependence did not mediate the effects of smoking in self-regulation. Differently, socioeconomic level, measured by parents? average years of schooling, negatively impacted solely cold self-regulatory measures (inhibition, shifting, updating and planning), and was related to worse performance in general knowledge, working memory capacity and greater state instability. Socioeconomic status and smoking interacted only regarding attentional lapses. The observed double dissociation, that smoking impairs hot functions, and that socioeconomic status only effects cold functions, strengthens the understanding that hot and cold self-regulation are a distinguishable sets of skills. This dissociative effect on self-regulation explains the absence of summations of the negative effects of smoking and low socioeconomic status. It is noteworthy that both the socioeconomic status and smoking were negatively associated with attentional problems, and that this impairment was independent of the effects on self-regulation. In sum, smoking and socioeconomic status differently impacts self-regulation.