Adolescents’ susceptibility to imitate the smoking behaviour of peers: the moderating effect of self-esteem and self-efficacy

The central focus of the present study was whether individual characteristics (selfesteem and self-efficacy) were moderating factors for the susceptibility of adolescents to imitating the smoking behaviour of peers. This was examined in an observational, experimental 2 factor smoking design (confederate smoking three cigarettes and not smoking) among 36 students of intermediate technical and vocational-training in an age-range of 16-24 years. By means of an Internet connection and a webcam, the youngsters could communicate with each other. Instruments used in the present study were the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, a self-efficacy scale and measuring CO-level by using a smokerlyzer. Data-analysis consisted of descriptive analyses and linear regression analysis. The results showed that only the variable total amount of cigarettes smoked by confederate was significant on the smoking behaviour of the subject. No interaction effect between both individual characteristics and the smoking behaviour of the confederate was found. Nevertheless, the present study do gave several new insights in underlying mechanisms of the smoking behaviour of adolescents, which can be very useful for the development of (new) intervention programs. Introduction Worldwide, tobacco smoking is considered as the second major death cause (WHO, 2007). The effects of tobacco smoking cause serious health damage but people continue smoking. It has been estimated that around 20 percent of the world population still smokes (Welch & Poulton, 2009). In the Netherlands, tobacco smoking is a major problem too and that is why the Dutch government tends to discourage this. The Dutch government has already implemented several policies to reduce people’s smoking behaviour but people still continue smoking, especially adolescents. In adolescence, youngsters usually start experimenting with tobacco smoking around the age of 10 until 14 (Stivoro, 2008). At the age of 15, 21 percent of them become daily smokers, who are physically and psychologically addicted to tobacco smoking (Stivoro, 2008). These are critical numbers because tobacco smoking causes dramatic consequences for adolescent’s health. Adolescents are more vulnerable than adults for the harmful substances carbon monoxide, nicotine and tar in tobacco smoke (Stivoro, 2009). These harmful substances cause serious health damage to the youngsters’ health as critical parts of their bodies, namely their brain, lungs and heart, are still in development. As a result, these harmful substances decrease the physical resistance of adolescents and that is why smoking youngsters are more vulnerable to get ill more often (Stivoro, 2009). Thus, it is important to discover why adolescents continue smoking and to understand the underlying mechanisms of their smoking behaviour. To do so, it is necessary to focus on the predictors of the smoking behaviour of adolescents. Various studies revealed that an important predictor for adolescents’ tobacco smoking are friendship groups (Engels et al., 2004; Urberg, 1997) and in particular the