We built a provisional 42-items questionnaire to assess the occurrence of different smoking behaviors in cigarette smokers. These items derived from litterature (pre-existent scales) and from qualitative materials as well (interviews with 35 smokers). This questionnaire was administrated to 180 French cigarette smokers (90 men, 90 women aged from 18 to 70 years old). A principal component analysis of their answers followed by varimax rotations yielded four factors which accounted for 52% of the total variance: dependence, social integration, negative affects regulation, hedonism. These dimensions correspond to the dimensions of smoking behavior described in the current litterature. We keeped best items (saturation >.40 on one factor). Thus, a 28 items questionnaire, the Smoking Behavior Questionnaire (SBQ), validated on French smokers was created. To a better understanding of smoking behaviour in this population, we assessed some socio-demographic characteristics of smokers (aspects of the smoking history of subject), some personality traits (anxiety, depression, sensation seeking), and coping skills that people usually elaborated facing stress events. We built an explaining model, integrating socio-demographic and dispositionnal characteristics as predictors, coping skills as mediators and smoking behavior as criterion. Compatibility of empirical data with this model were assessed with a structural analyse (Lisrel 8). Direct and significative effect were found between some socio-demographic and dispositionnal characteristics and each of the four smoking dimensions. Significative indirect effects had been also observed: specific "emotional" coping skills mediating significantly relations between anxiety, years of smoking on the one hand, and hedonistic smoking behavior on the other hand. Subjectively, smoking behaviour seems to be an "adaptative" fonction. The understanding of the behavioral profile of smokers should permit a personalization of smoking cessation techniques and increase their efficacy.