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Education and Smoking: Confounding or Effect Modification by Phenotypic Personality Traits?

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

Little is known about whether educational gradients in smoking patterns can be explained by financial measures of socioeconomic status (SES) and/or personality traits.

Purpose

To assess whether the relationship of education to (1) never smoking and (2) having quit smoking would be confounded by financial measures of SES or by personality; whether lower Neuroticism and higher Conscientiousness would be associated with having abstained from or quit smoking; and whether education effects were modified by personality.

Method

Using data from the Midlife Development in the US National Survey, 2,429 individuals were classified as current (n = 695), former (n = 999), or never (n = 735) smokers. Multinomial logistic regressions examined study questions.

Results

Greater education was strongly associated with both never and former smoking, with no confounding by financial status and personality. Never smoking was associated with lower Openness and higher Conscientiousness, while have quit was associated with higher Neuroticism. Education interacted additively with Conscientiousness to increase and with Openness to decrease the probability of never smoking.

Conclusions

Education and personality should be considered unconfounded smoking risks in epidemiologic and clinical studies. Educational associations with smoking may vary by personality dispositions, and prevention and intervention programs should consider both sets of factors.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Competing Interests

None

Support

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by United States Public Health Grant T32 MH073452, to Jeffrey Lyness and Paul Duberstein, and K08AG031328 to Ben Chapman.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Personality and Development, Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center, 300 Crittenden, Rochester, NY, 14642, USA

    Benjamin Chapman Ph.D. & Paul Duberstein Ph.D.

  2. Department of Family Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA

    Kevin Fiscella M.D., M.P.H.

  3. Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA

    Kevin Fiscella M.D., M.P.H.

  4. Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Ichiro Kawachi M.D., Ph.D.

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  1. Benjamin Chapman Ph.D.
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  2. Kevin Fiscella M.D., M.P.H.
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  3. Paul Duberstein Ph.D.
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  4. Ichiro Kawachi M.D., Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Benjamin Chapman Ph.D..

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Chapman, B., Fiscella, K., Duberstein, P. et al. Education and Smoking: Confounding or Effect Modification by Phenotypic Personality Traits?. ann. behav. med. 38, 237–248 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-009-9142-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-009-9142-3

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