Cigarette Smoking and Adolescent Psychosocial Development

Abstract

The major goal of the present paper is to examine the acquisition of cigarette smoking within the context of normal social development in adolescence. The study employed a cohort-sequential design and investigated the following variables: parent and peer smoking, parent and peer attitudes toward smoking, motivation to comply with parents and peers, and parent and peer supportiveness and strictness. The results indicated that adolescence is a time of increasing peer orientation. However, this increase in peer influence is not at the expense of parental influence, casting doubt on a "hydraulic" model of social influence during adolescence. A second important finding concerned the course of adolescent development toward increased "deviance proneness." Finally, the current study answered specific questions about the antecedents and consequences of adolescent cigarette smoking. Peer and parent attitudes were related to the initial onset of smoking but not the later transition to regular smoking. This suggests that there are distinct stages in the acquisition of smoking. In addition, increases in smoking had consequences that moved the adolescent further in the direction of "deviance proneness" (e.g., additional friends who smoked, less perceived parental support). These findings suggest a bi-directional model of the relation between the perceived social environment and adolescent smoking.