ABSTRACT
Cigarette smoking is a widespread and pervasive phenomenon in the Western world, and while it has received the passing attention of researchers in various disciplines over a period of time, it has only been within the last fifteen years that the pace of published research on smoking has quickened. The primary impetus for this focus has been, of course, the alleged causal relationship between cigarette smoking and various physical disorders. A series of “health scares”—beginning in 1953 with a paper presented to the New York Dental Association (Day, 1959) and continuing to include, among others, the Royal College of Physicians Report on Smoking and Health (1962) and the 1964 report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, Smoking and Health (U.S. Public Health Service, 1964)—has resulted in a monumental outpouring of research on many aspects of smoking behavior. It is of some interest to note that within this body of research there is a relatively 4recent trend (since 1962) toward investigations designed to attack the problem of modification (i.e., elimination) of smoking behavior as opposed to studies aimed at correlating smoking with psychological or morphological characteristics.
