Children between the ages of 9 and 15 are a high-risk group for tobacco use. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that first use of cigarettes among adolescents has risen 30% over the past decade, and that more than 1.2 million people age < 18 became daily smokers in 1996 alone. Moreover, research indicating that awareness and liking of cigarette advertisements is higher among adolescents than adults underscores the need to devote more effort to understanding reactions to tobacco-related messages. Adding to this problem is the fact that the early gains of some successful anti-tobacco interventions disappear as adolescents age. Drawing on the theory of psychological reactance, a number of hypotheses were tested that addressed the impact of pro- and anti-smoking messages on a variety of outcomes, including participants' intended behaviors, evaluation of message sources, and seeking of disconfirming information. All the messages were created and delivered to 4th-, 7th-, and 10th-grade students via personal computers. The pattern of results supports the theoretically derived hypotheses, indicating that grade level and message type had a significant impact on the processing of tobacco-related messages. Implications and suggestions for future tobacco prevention campaigns are discussed.

The authors investigated relationships between marijuana and inhalant use and several cultural and demographic factors in Anglo American and Hispanic American adolescents (N=1,094). Outcome measures assessed lifetime and 30-day marijuana and inhalant use. Predictors and covariates used in logistic regression analyses were region, grade, gender, knowledge, acculturation, familism, and parental monitoring. Hispanic Americans exhibited higher usage across all measures. In this group, high acculturation was associated with low marijuana, but high inhalant, use. Across all participants, positive family relations and parental monitoring were strongly associated with attenuated marijuana use hut only among those most knowledgeable about drugs. Familism and monitoring were not associated with diminished usage among the less knowledgeable. For inhalants, monitoring combined with high knowledge or high familism was associated with diminished usage.

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In-group minorities instigate indirect change because of their distinctiveness, the unexpectedness of their position, and their common identity with their targets. Preliminary study (/V = 408) uncovered links among a set of attitudes and revealed participants were unaware of the relationship between some attitudes despite significant correlation and proximity in multidimensional space. Study 1 (N -222) advocated a ban of homosexual soldiers attributed to majority, in-group, or out-group minority sources. No direct influence was evident. When credited to an in-group minority, the message influenced attitudes toward gun control, which were linked to the focal beliefs. Relative to other sources, the in-group minority was more positively evaluated, and its message less strongly counterargued (both p < .05) Study 2 (JV = 78) reversed direct and indirect attitude objects and replicated these results. Study 3 (N -66) examined majority influence and revealed direct, but not indirect, majority influence when participants' membership group was threatened.

An in-school youth survey for a major state anti-tobacco media campaign was conducted with 1,831 students (Grades 6-12) from 70 randomly selected classrooms throughout the state. Tobacco users accounted for nearly 25% of the sample. Pretest questionnaires assessed demographic variables, tobacco use, and various other risk factors. Several predictors of adolescents' susceptibility to tobacco use, including prior experimentation with tobacco, school performance, parental smoking status, parents' level of education, parental communication, parental relationship satisfaction, best friend's smoking status, prevalence of smokers in social environment, self-perceived potential to smoke related to peer pressure, and psychological reactance, were examined using discriminant analysis and logistic regression to identify the factors most useful in classifying adolescents as either high-risk or low-risk for smoking uptake. Results corroborate findings in the prevention literature indicating that age, prior experimentation, and having friends who smoke are among the principal predictors of smoking risk. New evidence is presented indicating that psychological reactance also should be considered as an important predictor of adolescent smoking initiation. The utility of producing antismoking messages informed by an awareness of the key risk factors-particularly psychological reactance-is discussed both in terms of the targeting and design of anti-tobacco campaigns.