Deterring the Onset of Smoking in Children: Knowledge of Immediate Physiological Effects and Coping with Peer Pressure, Media Pressure, and Parent Modeling¹

TLDR

Most seventh‑grade students believe smoking endangers long‑term health, yet they also emphasize immediate physiological effects. The study trained seventh‑grade students to cope with peer, parental, and media pressures using a 10‑week intervention and a dependent measure that enhanced self‑report validity. The intervention reduced smoking onset rates compared to a control group, and the study identified peers, smoking parents, and media as major social pressures that override health concerns.

Abstract

Entering seventh grade, most children believe that smoking endangers their long‐term health. Nevertheless, three sources of social pressure were found to often have an overriding influence to begin smoking: peers, models of smoking parents, and media. Interventions were developed to train children to cope with these pressures. Also stressed were immediate rather than long‐term physiological effects of smoking. A dependent measure was utilized that generates increased validity of self‐reports of smoking. A 10‐week investigation was completed with 750 male and female students entering the seventh grade. Rates of onset of smoking in treatment groups were significantly lower than in a pretest‐single posttest control group.