I Can Resist Anything But Temptation: Adolescent Expectations for Smoking Cigarettes¹

Abstract

Conformity to group pressure is widely considered a prime factor in experimentation with cigarettes. An alternative assumption is that the temptation to smoke arises out of the belief that cigarettes are instrumental in enhancing a sense of maturity, affiliation, and a reputation for autonomy. The present research assessed the relative saliency for both motive fulfillment and social pressure hypotheses in temptation dynamics and traced the causal influence of these factors on future expectations to smoke. Some 5,600 sixth, eighth and tenth graders rated the temptation value of four situations for smoking, varied along two dimensions: the composition of the group and the presence or absence of reasons that might minimize personal responsibility for smoking. Solitary smoking was a fifth situation. Between‐group analyses confirmed that smoking history of the individual (e.g., nonsmokers), grade level, and type of tempting situation all exerted a significant impact on perceived peer pressure, on temptation level, and on behavioral expectancy to smoke. However, beliefs about the instrumentality of cigarettes for reducing tension and enhancing a reputation for maturity and autonomy overshadowed peer pressure as causal agents for both temptation level and expectations. Moreover, instrumental beliefs were differentially salient in this temptation/expectancy dynamic, depending on the individual's smoking history. Finally, the causal saliency of instrumental beliefs differed, depending on whether temptation arose in solitary or group situations. The implications of these findings for adolescent smoking prevention and cessation strategies were considered.

Smoking and adolescence: Narratives of identity

“…Narratives have long been seen as a source of therapeutic engagement (Polkinghorne, 1988). Although it was not the intention of this study to take a therapeutic approach to the narratives, it is evident that the process of telling their stories was meaningful to the adolescents we interviewed, in that it challenged them to articulate where they stood in relation to tobacco use and, in turn, to express their standpoint with respect to their own sense of self or agency (Covington & Omelich, 1988;Stein et al, 1998). The different ways that the youths spoke about tobacco revealed different possibilities for how their future will be shaped by tobacco.…”

Branding: could it hold the key to future tobacco reduction policy?

“…These challenges to dominant beliefs offer opportunities to a group which is searching for ways to express a growing sense of identity and independence from control and authority. In line with this, investigators have suggested that smoking provides a means for rejecting parental authority and for projecting an image of maturity and independence (Covington and Omelich, 1988;Leventhal and Cleary, 1980).…”

Psychosocial correlates of adolescent cigarette smoking: Personality or environment

“…smokers have also been reported (Cherry & Kiernan, 1976). More recently, there has been an interestibg accumulation of evidence suggesting that adolescents who smoke typically have lower self-esteem (Dielman, Campanelli, Shope, & Butchart, 1987;Piepe, Cattermole, Charlton, Morey, Morey, & Yerrell, 1988) and more prominent self-perceptions of personal incompetence and social unpopularity (Chassin, Presson, Sherman, Corty, & Olshavsky, 1981;Covington, & Omelich, 1988) than those who do not. In seeking to incorporate measures of personality into a multivariate psychosocial investigation of adolescent smoking, therefore, the attributes of N and self-esteem appear to be those most reliably and persuasively recommended by the available evidence.…”