Attitudes of Adult Women to Drinking and Smoking

Abstract

Attitudes towards drinking and smoking were assessed in 766 women aged between 20 and 30. This total sample generated 2 quasi-representative samples of 265 participants each which matched each other and census data across a range of demographic variables. Attitudinal measures were analyzed in relation to criterion measures of status as drinker/ smoker, and level of drinking/smoking. All measures showed promising psychometric properties and initial indications of validity. Results were consistent across samples, and basic drinking and smoking statistics were comparable with previous research. The attitudinal measures related moderately to their criteria, apart from attitudes to smoking which were unrelated to level of smoking. For the remaining criteria, multiple correlations with relevant attitudinal predictors ranged between .46 and .56. The concept of dissonance amongst smokers was investigated, and comparisons were made across domains to establish a hierarchy of attitudes to drinking, smoking, and drunkenness.Attitude-behavior relationships have persistently resisted representation in the simple linear form that would make prediction of behavior attractively simple. Nonetheless, the nature, formation, change, and determinants of attitudes are of central interest, and the form of relationships, whatever their complexity, between attitudes and behaviors, are also important. In this paper, attitudes towards drinking and smoking were examined in relation to the self-reported drinking and smoking behaviors of 20 to 30 year women.Drinking and smoking are conceptually related in several ways. Each can be described as immediately gratifying, potentially pleasurable, and capable of inducing positive psychological states as well as of relieving negative ones. Additionally, they are both relatively acceptable behaviors compared with, for example, use of illegal drugs. Each of the behaviors has received widespread individual attention, but joint studies have been relatively rare. Combined studies have usually concentrated on relationships between behavioral measures rather than comparisons between attitudinal ones (see e.g.,