Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 26, Issue 3, May–June 2001, Pages 349-361
Addictive Behaviors

Trends in parent and friend influence during adolescence: The case of adolescent cigarette smoking

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4603(00)00110-6Get rights and content

Abstract

A common characterization of adolescence is that parent influence decreases and friend influence increases as adolescents age. From that, we hypothesized that the association between parent and adolescent smoking decreases and the association between friend and adolescent smoking increases as adolescents become older. The hypothesis is tested with data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Adolescent smoking is measured as progressions to more frequent smoking and as continuations from prior smoking levels. There is no support for the hypothesis, a finding consistent with the earlier panel study that tested it. The age-specific findings are discussed in the context of programs designed to influence adolescent cigarette smoking and why the hypothesis that drove this study was not confirmed. Among supplementary findings reported is that adolescent smoking is more influenced by friend smoking than by parent smoking.

Section snippets

Background

The behaviors of parents and friends are considered to be among the more important influences on adolescent behavior Ausubel et al., 1977, Bandura, 1977, Clausen, 1968, Coleman, 1961, Douvan & Adelson, 1966, Hirschi, 1969, Rowe, 1994, Sutherland & Cressey, 1966. The tendency for adolescents to behave like their parents and friends is central to a number of theories, including those that involve modeling which views young people as imitating the behaviors of parents and peers (Bandura, 1977);

Methods

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health is described in detail elsewhere (Bearman et al., 1997). Schools were sampled to represent schools throughout the US, and then from September 1994 through April 1995 more than 90,000 adolescents in 134 middle and high schools completed in-school questionnaires. From those adolescents, and from others who did not complete questionnaires but whose names and addresses were available on school rosters, 200 adolescents per school were selected

Findings

None of our findings support the hypothesis that the influence of parent smoking weakens and the influence of friend smoking strengthens with adolescent age. There was no general increase or decrease for either parent influence or for friend influence. We now document these findings.

Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4 compare parent and friend influence by age according to whether (a) Wave I adolescent nonsmokers became smokers by Wave II (Fig. 1), (b) Wave I experimental smokers became occasional

Discussion

Our findings for this national sample of adolescents suggest that both parent and friend smoking are implicated in adolescent smoking, but that the influence does not vary by adolescent age. This is consistent with an earlier local longitudinal study of adolescent smoking (Chassin et al., 1986), but inconsistent with many common conceptualizations of adolescent behavior. Also similar to earlier studies, friend smoking appears to be more strongly and consistently implicated than parent smoking,

Acknowledgements

This research is based on data from the Add Health project, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry (PI) and Peter Bearman, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with cooperative funding participation by the National Cancer Institute; the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication

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