EEG and personality differences between smokers and nonsmokers

Bilateral EEG spectra and personality were assessed in 46 habitual smokers and 46 nonsmokers, matched for age and gender. Smokers tended to have more activated EEG's than nonsmokers as indicated by higher dominant and median alpha frequencies and more fast and less slow frequency activity when relaxing with their eyes closed. Female smokers, compared to female nonsmokers, scored higher on personality trait measures of anger-proneness and psychoticism and lower on the Eysenck Personality (EPQ) conventionality/lie scale. Among males, the EPQ psychoticism scale, which has also been associated with anger, was the only personality measure found to significantly differentiate smokers from nonsmokers. The combination of EEG and personality findings is consistent with the view that there are differences between smokers and nonsmokers, such that smokers are more aroused and potentially irritated or angered more easily than nonsmokers.