Smoking in Adolescence

Images and Identities

Barbara Lloyd, Kevin Lucas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317724964
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

What factors influence adolescents to take up smoking? Why do more girls smoke than boys? In contrast to medical orthodoxy, Smoking in Adolescence looks at smoking from the adolescents' own points of view. What emerges is that regular smokers are seen as fun-loving and nonconformist; cigarettes are a passport to a fashionable, popular and 'hard' identity.

Young people create, and are influenced by, complex images of smokers and nonsmokers. Barbara Lloyd and Kevin Lucas explore the psychological dimensions such as social environment, family, peers, stress and coping, body image, mood and pleasure. They suggest how anti-smoking interventions should be re-evaluated to take account of this new evidence throughout the school curriculum.

Smoking in Adolescence will be of practical interest to teachers, youth workers, health professionals and parents as well as students of psychology.

1 ‘Problem behaviour’, sensation seeking and the concept of risk

Telling adolescents to 'Just say no' is like telling Christopher Columbus to stay home.

F. Farley

For more than two decades, a disparate range of activities that become prevalent in adolescence have been brought together and viewed collectively as 'problem behaviours'. These activities include cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol, taking illicit drugs, early sexual intercourse, as well as various forms of delinquency. Our opening chapter examines the origins of this concept, describes its later formulations, notes specifically developmental aspects of the theory and considers its role in understanding adolescent health-related behaviours.

During the late 1960s, the United States and Western Europe witnessed the rise of a phenomenon which was soon to become known as 'youth culture'. Unprecedentedly large numbers of young people spoke both articulately and vociferously against many of the institutions, traditions and values of the establishment. Within one generation, adolescents' and young adults' styles of dress and music, political affiliations, attitudes towards sexuality and drugs (notably marijuana) suddenly became so radically different from those of their parents that the effect on the latter was profoundly disturbing. This effect was especially acute in the United States, where continued American involvement with the much-resented war in Vietnam became a focused manifestation of the new schism between parents and their children.

The iconoclastic nature of the 1960s youth movement was worrying for governments and for academics alike. For politicians, the promulgation of such values and an attractively persuasive advocacy of alternative lifestyles challenged a previously unquestioned assumption: that all power was located within the confines of adulthood in general, and material wealth in particular. Social scientists, on the other hand, appeared impotent because no adequate contemporary explanations were available for the phenomenon's origins, and no one could predict how long it was going to last. The resultant tension placed considerable pressure on social psychologists and sociologists to produce theories in order to explain what many regarded as a dangerously anarchic trend.

One of the most influential approaches to the problem was developed in the United States, by Richard and Shirley lessor. They described how

Youthful leadership in opposing an egregiously unpopular war, in innovating alternative ways of living, and in mounting sustained criticism of established norms and institutions had not been anticipated by the larger society and constituted, for many, a disconcerting challenge.

(Jessor and Jessor, 1977: 3)

To address this issue, Jessor and Jessor undertook a large-scale longitudinal study of American high school and college students. The result of this study was the development of 'problem behaviour theory', which is still used widely today. It is from this background that many studies of adolescent health-related behaviours have arisen. Such has been the power of the associations revealed by problem behaviour theory, both within the social sciences and among other professionals who work with adolescents and young adults, that it is appropriate for this book to begin with an examination of its main tenets and findings.

Problem Behaviour Theory

Problem behaviour theory considers activities such as smoking, alcohol use and sexual behaviour to be a product of three major systems, and each of these systems is in turn viewed as comprising a number of component structures.

The first of these systems is the personality system. According to the theory, the personality system is seen as being composed of three structures:

1. The motivational-instigation structure. This structure is concerned with both the goals towards which an individual strives, and the sources which instigate certain behaviours. Whether an individual performs certain behaviour towards a given goal is determined by the value placed upon that goal in relation to alternative goals, and by similar variation in expectation of attaining that particular goal.
2. The personal belief structure. This consists of factors which constrain an individual from engaging in problem behaviours; these are social criticism, alienation, self-esteem and locus of control. Social criticism is used in this context to mean the degree of acceptance or rejection of societal norms.¹
3. The personal control structure. This component of the theory refers to an individual's control against 'unconventional' behaviour. While there is likely to be some overlap with parts of the motivational-instigation structure, the personal control structure is more directly related to the problem behaviour itself, and allows for a separate examination of variables in the former which may be linked only distally to the behaviour in question. The personal control structure contains three variables: attitudinal tolerance of deviance; religiosity; and the discrepancy between reasons for and against engaging in problem behaviours.

The second of the three systems which comprise problem behaviour theory is the perceived environment system. This is considered to be composed of a distal structure and a proximal structure.

1. The distal structure of the perceived environment system is conceptualised as being the product of an adolescent's orientation towards his/her parents and peers, and the nature of those relationships. How an adolescent relates to these is seen to be expressed by his/her perceptions of support and control from both parents and peers, and the compatibility of expectations on the adolescent from these two sources. Also included in the distal structure is the adolescent's perception of the relative influence of peers and parents on their own behaviour. The assumption is that a greater orientation towards parents compared to peers will result in an alignment with more conventional codes of behaviour and thus to a decreased likelihood of engaging in problem behaviour. Conversely, a greater orientation towards peers is expected to be associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in such activities.
2. The proximal structure of the perceived environment is primarily concerned with two factors: the prevalence of problem behaviour in the individual's environment, and the presence or absence of social support for the behaviour in question. Such social support is seen as a continuum from lack of disapproval through to active encouragement. For example, a teenager will be more likely to experiment with drugs in an area where their use is widespread than in one where drug use is rare, and is more likely to do so if encouraged to experiment by his or her friends. Again, such factors are considered in the context of both parents and peers.

The third and final structure on which problem behaviour theory is based is the behaviour system. This has two main structures: problem behaviour and conventional behaviour.

1. Jessor and Jessor viewed problem behaviour in relation to activism, drug use, sexual intercourse, alcohol use and misuse, and what they term 'general deviant behaviour' - meaning stealing, lying, vandalism, disruptive behaviour and aggression.²
2. Conventional behaviour, on the other hand, is considered only superficially by the theory and was assessed in terms of church attendance, together with academic involvement and achievement.³

All these components are seen by the theory as interrelated and work with (or against) each other to produce problem (or conventional) behaviours. It is these processes that are held to account for the co-occurrence of the various 'problem' behaviours described above. The result of this work has been the notion that such behaviours form a 'syndrome', an idea that has been investigated by many social researchers.

Problem Behaviours and Sensation Seeking

An alternative explanation for the co-occurrence of certain behaviours in adolescence has been proposed by Zuckerman (1979). Zuckerman's concept of 'sensation seeking' has, like Jessor and Jessor's problem behaviour theory, become influential among researchers in recent years and has resulted in several hundred published studies based on its premises. The causes of sensation-seeking behaviour are thought to be very complex and multi-faceted, and to include explanations based in psychological factors such as personality and individual differences, as well as in physiology and genetics (Zuckerman, 1994). Zuckerman proposes that many behaviours such as smoking, drinking, drug use and sexual intercourse have a common feature: they are likely to be particularly attractive to individuals who are score highly on a measure known as the sensation-seeking scale (SSS). Individuals who score less highly on the SSS will be less likely, therefore, to engage in such activities. Various forms of the scale have been produced, and Zuckerman's most recent version (1994) consists of items which address four factors:

• Thrill and adventure seeking. Included in this factor is the desire to engage in sports and other physically risky activities, and a tendency to find enjoyment in experiences that are mildly frightening.
• Experience seeking. This factor describes the seeking of novel experiences such as music, art, travel and through a kind of 'bohemian' social nonconformity similar to that described by Jessor and Jessor.
• Disinhibition. These items in the scale measure a tendency towards sensation through activities which are unconventional or illegal.
• Boredom susceptibility. A low tolerance of boredom and routine is held to increase a tendency towards sensation seeking, and this tendency is measured by appropriate items in the SSS.

Early results using the SSS showed that young adults who had high scores on the scale were much more likely to be smokers compared to their contemporaries who had low scores (67 per cent against 18 per cent respectively; Zuckerman et al., 1972). More than a decade later, despite a drop in the proportion of smokers overall, a sample of similar age still showed more smokers in the high sensation-seeking group with very few low sensation-seeking subjects having ever smoked (Zuckerman, 1988). The sensation-seeking explanation of smoking behaviour appears to have high cross-cultural applicability and has produced comparable results in samples of the general American population (Zuckerman and Neeb, 1980), British male adolescents (Golding et al., 1983), Norwegian adolescents (Pederson et al., 1989), Dutch adults (Feij and van Zuilen, 1984) and adolescents in Israel (Teichman et al., 1989).

The clustering of certain behaviours seen in lessor and Jessor's problem behaviour theory is echoed by the findings of later applications of Zuckerman's concept of sensation seeking. Since these early studies, sensation seeking has been demonstrated to be associated with adolescent alcohol use and misuse, marijuana use, with the use of amphetamines, barbiturates, cocaine and opiates, and with multiple drug usage in a number of studies, as well as with delinquency (see Zuckerman, 1994, for review).

In a similar manner, the evidence in support of problem behaviour theory has accumulated in recent years, and a high degree of cooccurrence between delinquency, school failure, substance misuse and high-risk sexual behaviour has been reported in American teenagers (Barone et al., 1995).

The notion of 'high-risk' sexual behaviours has become more prevalent and prominent since the appearance of HIV/AIDS on both sides of the Atlantic, and has become the subject of a number of studies undertaken from a problem behaviour perspective. In a study of American teenagers, Biglan et al. (1990) investigated the relationship between problem behaviours such as academic difficulties, smoking, alcohol use, other drug use, antisocial behaviour and low levels of self-reported prosocial behaviour with engagement in a variety of high-risk sexual activities. The latter included high numbers of sexual partners, having sex with partners not well known, partners having sex with others, partners injecting drugs, the non-use of condoms and anal intercourse. He and his colleagues found clear evidence that adolescents were more likely to engage in such high-risk sexual behaviours if they were also involved in other problem behaviours. This finding is particularly important in the context of HIV prevention programmes. While early sexual intercourse has been associated with other problem behaviours since Jessor and lessor's original work with American teenagers, it had not been shown previously that adolescents who were involved in problem behaviours were also more likely to engage in specific sexual behaviours which put them at particular risk of HIV infection. It is of note that cigarette smoking was a strong and independent predictor of high-risk sexual activity in every analysis Biglan and his co-workers undertook. A model of risky sexual behaviour was used by Metzler et al. (1994) in a similar investigation of adolescent sexual behaviour, but in this study a particular focus was the influence of peer and family factors which have previously been associated with problem behaviour in adolescents. Adolescents whose peers were reported to engage in diverse problem behaviours were found to be more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviours. Poor parental monitoring and lower availability of parental figures within the family were also factors.

Thus, the weight of evidence for the existence of some form of 'syndrome' of problematic behaviours in adolescence seemed to increase across twenty years of research findings, and the list of behaviours included in the problem behaviour cluster has also grown. It has now been shown to include psychopathology such as conduct disorders (Lavery and Siegel, 1993). However, Zuckerman concluded that

Sensation seeking is a normal trait of personality. Unlike Neuroticism, there is no necessary association with behaviour disorder at either extreme of the trait.... Sensation seeking seems to be a necessary but not sufficient ingredient of an antisocial personality.

(1994: 283)

Much of the work that has demonstrated links between the various forms of problem behaviours has been correlational in nature. It is also true that some factor-analytic studies (e.g. Farrell et al., 1992) have found that not only are measures of problem behaviour positively correlated with each other, but these measures are negatively correlated with measures of conventional behaviour. Furthermore, Farrell and his colleagues performed confirmatory factor analyses which replicated those of previous studies; according to their data, a single common factor appeared to underlie adolescent problem behaviours such as smoking, alcohol and marijuana use, delinquency and early sexual intercourse.

However, it should be noted that not all studies wholly support the view that problem behaviour represents a single domain. By contrast, other factor-analytic studies have provided a different perspective. For example, DeCourville (1995) tested the utility of the theory in accounting for substance use in a large sample of Canadian adolescents. In her longitudinal study, she found that attempts to fit models that included variables from all the structures proposed by problem behaviour theory were unsuccessful, in that the final models varied substantially from the hypothesised model, from one data wave to another, and by gender. Using an abridged model, however, she managed to replicate Jessor and lessor's results. Similarly, Tildesley et al. (1995) used a multi-trait, multi-method design to test the theory. Their findings seem to threaten the validity of problem behaviour theory. Results of their hierarchical confirmatory factor analyses indicate that the convergent and discriminant validity of the behaviour constructs was high and that method effects were low. By contrast, a two-factor, second-order model which represented general drug use and other problem behaviours accounted for a larger proportion of variance in the lower-order factors compared to the traditional single-factor model.

Recent Developments in Problem Behaviour Theory

Problem behaviour theory has moved on since its conception as a single syndrome. The theory is no longer a direct response to behaviours which threatened the American establishment in the 1970s, and more sophisticated explanations are currently available. The most important of these conceptual developments concerns the relationships of risk factors and protective factors. Stice and Barrera (1995) used a longitudinal study to explore the reciprocal relationship between adolescents perceptions of the parenting they received at home and their own substance use. They adopted a model proposed by earlier workers (Lerner and Spanier, 1978; Sameroff, 1975) in which not only does parenting affect children's behaviour, but children's behaviour also affects parenting. They ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 'Problem behaviour', sensation seeking and the concept of risk
• 2 Studying adolescent smoking
• 3 Two empirical studies of adolescent smoking
• 4 The social environment: families, relationships and smoking
• 5 Social environments: parenting, peers and school culture
• 6 Smoking and mood: the control of stress, the pursuit of pleasure and concerns about the body
• 7 Smoking and image formation
• 8 Social identities of adolescent smokers
• 9 Interventions
• 10 Breaking the mould
• References
• Index