ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

Acta Psychologica Sinica ›› 2026, Vol. 58 ›› Issue (12): 2547-2567.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2026.2547

• Reports of Empirical Studies • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The impact of negative social feedback on behavioral inhibition in smokers: Serial evidence from behavioral and event-related potential studies

SUN Meng1,2, MENG Jinqiu1, YUAN Jiajin1   

  1. 1Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610066, China;
    2Jinzhou Normal College, Jinzhou 121000, China
  • Received:2026-04-14 Published:2026-12-25 Online:2026-10-29

Abstract: Impaired behavioral inhibition is not only a cognitive consequence of smoking but also a critical factor contributing to the difficulty of smoking cessation. Given the social nature of smoking behavior, negative social feedback targeting smoking may serve as a potential pathway to enhance inhibitory control in smokers. However, no direct empirical research has explored this possibility to date. To address this gap, the present study manipulated the category of negative social feedback (smoking-related feedback vs. general feedback) and employed a smoking-related Go/No-Go task combined with an Implicit Association Test to investigate the effects of negative social feedback from different sources on smokers' craving and behavioral inhibition. Meanwhile, event-related potentials were used to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of brain activity underlying these effects.
The results revealed that: (1) Following the induction of negative social feedback, the general feedback group exhibited decreased behavioral inhibition performance, whereas the smoking feedback group showed significantly improved inhibition. Notably, this differential pattern emerged exclusively under smoking-cue conditions. (2) The smoking feedback group demonstrated a significant reduction in explicit craving at post-test, along with a declining trend in implicit craving, whereas no significant changes were observed in either craving dimension within the general feedback group. (3) Electrophysiological data indicated that general feedback led to a significant reduction in central P3 amplitudes, while smoking feedback did not induce such attenuation. Furthermore, compared to the general feedback group, the smoking feedback group exhibited larger central P3 amplitudes and smaller frontal N2 amplitudes during the post-test phase. (4) Participants' smoking craving levels significantly and negatively predicted Go reaction times and positively predicted No-Go error rates, suggesting a positive association between craving and behavioral dyscontrol.
This study differentiated the directionality of negative social feedback, revealing that negative social feedback directed at smoking behavior can transform social pain into a potential facilitating effect on smoking-related behavioral inhibition. Collectively, these results demonstrate that negative social feedback targeting smoking behavior promotes smokers’ inhibitory control over smoking behavior and the associated neural processing.

Key words: smokers, behavioral inhibition, smoking cessation, negative social feedback, inhibitory control, event- related potentials (ERP)

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