Abstract
Interoception refers to the signalling, perception, and interpretation of moment-to-moment
changes in physiological signals. Interoceptive awareness relates to individual differences in
the ability to perceive internal bodily sensations. These individual differences have been
associated with differences in emotional experience, psychopathology, and cognition. This
thesis aimed to explore how interoceptive awareness is related to nicotine addiction in
tobacco smokers.
Part one of this portfolio presents a narrative review of research into interoceptive
processes and smoking addiction. The review explores and synthesises research across
disciplines of neuroscience and psychology. It highlights research implicating the neural
basis of interoception, the insula cortex, in craving states and impulse control. Then, it
summarises research looking at interoceptive awareness on decision-making. The review
also explores how interoceptive processes relate to alexithymia, a difficulty in identifying
emotion, and anxiety sensitivity, the interpretation of bodily sensations of anxiety as
harmful, and how these constructs influence smoking behaviour. Finally, the review
synthesises this information and considers how these findings can be important for clinical
psychologists. This review has been submitted for publication at the Nicotine and Tobacco
Research journal and has been provisionally accepted following revisions to the paper.
Part two of this portfolio presents an empirical paper that investigates interoceptive
awareness in current tobacco smokers and ex-smokers. The findings suggest that, within the
limitations of the sample size, there are no clear differences between current and ex-smokers,
and higher interoceptive awareness may relate to reduced motivation to quit in
smokers and increased attempts to successfully quit in ex-smokers. However, due to the
high proportion of e-cigarette users in the ex-smoker sample, further explorations found
that when looking at nicotine users as one group, those who are more interoceptively aware
are significantly less dependent on nicotine.