Activating Interpersonal Influence in the Prevention of Adolescent Tobacco Use: An Evaluation of Iowa's Program Against Smoking

Abstract

Abstract Knowledge and behavioral competitions were used to influence adolescents' smoking-relevant beliefs and subjective norms and, thereby, their smoking. These competitions were also expected to alter the influence adolescents exerted on one another, contributing indirectly to less smoking. These interventions were field tested in seven middle schools in three Iowa communities. Follow-up analyses more than 1 year after the competitions revealed that two belief indices (bad effects and short-term favorable effects) and two measures of subjective norms (adolescents' perceptions of friends' and families' attitudes toward smoking) were significant predictors of their concurrent smoking, accounting for almost twice as much of the variance in spring 1986 as they had in fall of 1984. We also found that the competitions modestly, but significantly, increased the number of bad effects and reduced the number of short-term favorable effects associated with smoking and increased adolescents' perceptions that their best friends disapproved of smoking. The competitions' effect on smoking varied depending on adolescents' preintervention smoking. For those who were already smoking at least once a week, the competition boomeranged, increasing rather than decreasing smoking.