Who Do Smokers Feel Ought to Be Responsible for Informing People about the Dangers Associated with Smoking and Regulating Smoking Behaviors

IntroductionLocus of control is defined as the extent to which people perceive themselves as having the ability or "agency" to determine what happens to them versus believing that outside forces and/or other persons are, to a greater extent, responsible for their experiences and actions. When discussing locus of control, researchers typically conceptualize people falling onto a continuum that is bounded, on one side, by those who are internally oriented (believing in their own ability to determine their own fate and experiences) and, on the other side, those who are externally oriented (believing that what happens to them is the result of outside forces that are beyond their personal control). Locus of control has been linked to a variety of health practices, such as cigarette smoking and tobacco cessation (1-3), smoking during pregnancy (4), substance use and abuse (5), healthy eating practices (1), and risky sexual behaviors (5), among others. This had led researchers to coin the term "health locus of control" to apply the underlying principles of locus of control to the scientific study and understanding of people's health practices (6-8). Typically, research has found that people who are more internally oriented when it comes to locus of control tend to engage in lower rates of risky behaviors and higher rates of behavioral practices that can be considered to be beneficial or health protective in nature (2, 6, 9).Closely related to the notions of locus of control and health locus of control is the construct of "powerful others" (10). Powerful others are people or institutions that are perceived as being dominant, persuasive, influential, and/or controlling in terms of determining how events in one's life unfold. For persons who score higher on the external rather than the internal end of the locus of control continuum, powerful others are construed as being the principal source and the main underlying force of their experiences and actions, to the point where the individuals themselves believe that they have limited, if any, responsibility or agency for their life events. Research has demonstrated that people whose locus of control orientation supports the belief in powerful others are more apt to have adverse substance use/abuse outcomes than their peers who are not oriented toward believing in the importance of powerful others (1, 11).In the present paper, the focus is on one specific measure that, conceptually, may be construed as a proxy for internal/external locus of control-namely, the extent to which people believe that outside persons, organizations, and agencies (such as public health agencies and tobacco companies) ought to be responsible for informing the public about the potential health hazards of smoking and for regulating the public's access to and usage of cigarettes. In this article, we examine the following research questions: 1) To what extent do adult smokers believe that it should be the responsibility of these "powerful others" to inform the public about the dangers of smoking and to regulate tobacco use in the United States? 2) How, if at all, does adhering to the external orientation locus of control-related belief in other persons and agencies being responsible for informing the public and regulating tobacco use relate to actual smoking practices and to smokers' attitudes toward smoking? 3) What factors underlie greater versus lesser adherence to the belief that outside persons and agencies should be responsible for providing the public with information about the dangers of smoking and with regulating cigarette use/policy? 4) When we try to understand the factors that affect people's smoking behaviors, does the extent to which they believe that outside persons and agencies should be responsible for providing the public with information about the dangers of smoking and with regulating cigarette use/policy matter when the effects of other relevant variables are taken into account? …