Newly published research from the University of Southern California (USC) notes that junior high school friends have a stronger influence on a person's smoking habits than senior high school friends, reports Science Daily.
Previous studies have shown that teenage smoking is highly influenced by peers and classmates. Parents' smoking habits also have an effect on a teenager's smoking behavior. USC Researchers notes junior high school friends have a stronger influence on a person's smoking habits than senior high school friends. The study also found that a parent's influence on a teenager's smoking habit remains the same through both junior and senior high school.
"Based on social developmental model research, we thought friends would have more influence on cigarette use during high school than junior high school," said first author Yue Liao, M.P.H., Ph.D., a student in the department of preventive medicine's Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research (IPR) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "But what we found was friends have greater influence during junior high school than high school. We think the reason may be that friends' cigarette use behavior may have a stronger influence on youth who start smoking at a younger age. During high school, cigarette use might represent the maintenance of behavior rather than a result of peer influence."
Results of the study confirmed that both friends and parents influenced a teenager's smoking behavior. But while a friend's influence was more prominent in junior high school than in senior high school, a parent's influence was stable throughout both periods.
Researchers also found that friends' influence on teenagers during class 9 and 10 was greater for girls than boys during class 11 and 12; boys were more influenced by their friends than their parents. It was also found that both friends and parents had a lesser influence on girls during class 11 and 12.
"Boys tend to foster friendship by engaging in shared behaviors, whereas girls are more focused on emotional sharing. So, it is possible that boys are adopting their friends' risky behaviors, like smoking, as the groups grow together over time," Liao said.
The findings of the study were published in the April 12 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.
