The Predictors of Adolescent Smoking

Abstract

One thousand nine hundred and forty-two junior and senior high school students completed a self-report survey instrument containing measures of cigarette smoking and selected intrapersonal, peer pressure and family functioning variables. Results revealed that peer pressure was significantly associated with smoking behavior across all age × gender cohorts, but that intrapersonal factors were significantly more important to the smoking behavior of 12-13 year-old girls than same-age boys. Within the 14-15 year-old age group, one peer pressure variable (friends' approval of smoking) emerged as a significantly more important predictor of girls' than boys' smoking. Taken together, results suggest that while smoking prevention programs based on social reinforcement principles may be sufficient for adolescent boys, young adolescent girls are likely to benefit from programs which incorporate both peer resistance training and developmental strategies targeting conduct disorder. [Article copies available for a fee fromThe Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678.

Influences affecting adolescent smoking behavior in China

“…Risk factors identified in the present study that replicate those found in previous studies of multiple influences include intentions to smoke or susceptibility (Carvajal et al, 2004;Collins & Ellickson, 2004;Pierce, Choi, Gilpin, Farkas, & Merritt, 1996;Sussman et al, 2000), good friend smoking or peer pressure (Barber et al, 1999;Sussman et al, 2000), and low self-efficacy or selfesteem (Barber et al, 1999;Carvajal et al, 2004;Collins & Ellickson, 2004). Risk factors common to other studies that were not found in the present study include hostility or problem behavior (Barber et al, 1999;Collins & Ellickson, 2004), perceived or actual academic performance (Carvajal et al, 2004;Collins & Ellickson, 2004), and addiction concern (Sussman et al, 2000).…”

“…These risk factors include positive attitudes toward smoking (Carvajal, Wiatrek, Evans, Knee, & Nash, 2000;Castrucci, Gerlach, Kaufman, & Orleans, 2002b); peer smoking and peer pressure (e.g., Alexander, Piazza, Mekos, & Valente, 2001;Carvajal et al, 2000;Castrucci, Gerlach, Kaufman, & Orleans, 2002a;Unger et al, 2002;Wills & Cleary, 1997); parental attitude toward smoking and the parent's current smoking status (Carvajal et al, 2004;Castrucci et al, 2002b;Griffin, Botvin, Doyle, Diaz, & Epstein, 1999;Wills & Cleary, 1997); acculturation (Chen, Unger, & Johnson, 1999); problem-behaving friends (SimonsMorton et al, 1999); authoritative parenting and family structure (Griesbach, Amos, & Currie, 2003;Quensel et al, 2002;Simons-Morton et al, 1999); low self-esteem for girls only (Barber, Bolitho, & Bertrand, 1999;Lewis, Harrell, Bradley, & Deng, 2001;Thornton, Douglas, & Houghton, 1999); low socioeconomic status (Lewis et al, 2001); older sibling smoking (Rajan et al, 2003); poor grades (Griffin et al, 1999); perceived stress, anxiety, and coping (Dugan, Lloyd, & Lucas, 1999;Sonntag, Wittchen, Hofler, Kessler, & Stein, 2000); and experimentation with cigarettes (Griffin et al, 1999).…”

The importance of resilience and stress to maintaining smoking abstinence and cessation: a qualitative study in Australia with people diagnosed with depression

“…Autonomy may be another internal property that is important to developing resilience because there is a great deal of evidence that 'peer pressure' can encourage smoking. (Barber et al 1999, Vries et al 2003, Tsai et al 2009).…”

Using peer injunctive norms to predict early adolescent cigarette smoking intentions

“…For example, Robin and Johnson (1996) reported that perceived peer disapproval of cigarette use was significantly correlated with cigarette use (r = −.38) among a sample of 8 th –12 th graders. Another study that examined friends’ approval of smoking (Barber, Bolitho, & Bertrand, 1999) found some support for the relation between a dichotomous measure of friends’ approval and current smoking in 12- to 17-year-olds.…”