Antecedents of Smoking among Pre-Adolescents

Abstract

About 600 fifth and sixth grade students were assessed regarding previous and current smoking activity, parents' smoking, four dimensions of self esteem, and a variety of attitudes toward school. A series of multivariate analyses showed that students were more likely to begin smoking if they had parents providing a smoking model, had low self esteem (especially with respect to family and school contexts), and disliked school and feared failure. Students who had continued to smoke showed reduced failure anxiety and reduced decrements of self esteem. In the absence of evidence on causality, this apparent amelioration might be seen as resulting from a stress-relieving effect of smoking behavior itself, from socialization into a smoking group, or simply from students having been predisposed to begin smoking by an attitudinal pit.