Adolescent attitudes to smoking: their influence on behaviour

This paper presents data on 6330 boys and girls aged 11-12 years. The relationship between gender, smoking behaviour and attitudes towards smoking in general, smoking and health, family permissiveness, school values and peer group influence are explored. Four attitude scales were constructed with sufficiently high internal consistency scores. Both boys and girls who smoke were more likely to endorse statements concerning the general desirability of smoking and also to under-value the long term dangers of smoking. Smokers were also likely to hold anti-school values and acknowledge peer group pressure to smoke. Boys who smoked were more likely to report lack of parental concern and increased parental permissiveness. Some of the boys' results and all of the girls' results provide original information for a British sample. Findings are discussed, where relevant, in terms of health education and anti-smoking strategies.