Social influences and constraints on the initiation and cessation of adolescent tobacco use

A social bonding-drug progression model of amphetamine use among young women

Social bonding theory explains less serious drug use better than use of hard drugs. The difference in prediction may be due to the omission of intervening variables between the bond and serious drug use, such as experience with minor drugs. In this study the impact of the social bond on amphetamine use is examined among a national sample of high school senior women. Included in the model is the notion of drug progression, in which individuals first use minor drugs and progress to illicit drugs. To ascertain whether the bond is mediated through use of less serious drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana are utilized in the analysis. Among the bonding variables, religious commitment has the only significant direct effect on amphetamines. Overall, elements of the bond explain less variance in amphetamines than in cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. Combining drug progression with social bonding theory substantially increases the explained variance of amphetamines.

Psychological concomitants of tobacco and alcohol use in young Australian adults

Nineteen-year-old subjects in an Australian community sample (N = 1028) reported their tobacco and alcohol use of the previous week, and 598 of them gave similar information 3 years later. The paper examines the demographic (sex, ethnic background, and occupational status) and psychological characteristics (hopelessness, self-esteem, locus of control, and social alienation) of tobacco and alcohol users and nonusers at the ages of 19 and 22, and also of subjects who started or stopped consumption of these drugs over the three year period. Smoking at 22, and particularly having started to smoke between 19 and 22, seems to be associated with feelings of demoralization and social alienation, as is relatively heavy drinking. Moderate drinking of alcohol is however normative for the well-adjusted and socially well-integrated young adult in this culture. The findings imply a need for rather different health-promotion messages related to tobacco and to alcohol.

Predicting the onset of smoking in boys and girls

The problem of the high prevalence of smoking among girls and young women is of great concern. In an attempt to identify the factors which influence girls and boys respectively to attempt smoking, the study examines social background, advertising and brand awareness, knowledge, teaching and personal beliefs in conjunction as predictors of smoking. In this study which involved the administration of identical pre- and post-test questionnaires to a sample of boys and girls aged 12 and 13 years, nine variables expressed by never-smokers at pre-test stage were assessed as predictors of immediate future smoking. The two tests were administered 4 months apart to 1125 boys and 1213 girls in northern England. The nine variables included were parental smoking, best friends' smoking, perceived positive values of smoking, perceived negative values of smoking, correct health knowledge, cigarette-brand awareness, having a favourite cigarette advertisement, having a cigarette-brand sponsored sport in four top favourites on television. One group received teaching about smoking between the pre- and post-tests and this was also included as a variable. For boys, no variable investigated had any consistently statistically significant correlation with the uptake of smoking. The most important predictor of smoking for boys, having a best friend who smoked, was significant on application of the chi 2 test (P 0.037), although it was non-significant when included singly in a logistic regression model (0.094); the discrepancy was probably due to the small number of best friends known to smoke. For girls, four variables were found to be significant predictors of smoking when included singly in a logistic regression.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Predictors of non-adoption of cigarette smoking following experimentation

The Childhood Antecedents of Smoking Study (CASS) investigated patterns of cigarette smoking among junior and senior high school students in an upper midwest school district. Four biannual school-based surveys were conducted over two years. A cohort of 72 smokers was identified and followed to determine who continued smoking and who quit. Discriminant analysis was used to study social, psychological, and environmental factors predictive of quitting smoking. Compared to continuing smokers, quitters reported having fewer friends and siblings who smoked, they were less likely to view the cigarette smoker's image as positive, and lived in families where parental involvement with teenagers was high (based on the reports of parents). These results are consistent with the view that social influences are strong determinants of patterns of adolescent smoking behaviour.