Adolescent Anti-Smoking, A scientific paper on findings and effects, what is working?

Preface

This paper is written so that I may bring to light what research has been gathered by a number of different schools and journals. This report will describe the findings in the journals and will then take a look at what is working and what is not working. The gathered articles may give the United States an insight into what will actually help lower the percentage of adolescent smoking. Hundreds of programs, advertisements, and commercials have spent much time in the effort, what is working?
The Report

In this paper, an adolescent will be among the ages of 11-18 years of age, also may be know as a teen. The articles gathered start generally the same way, telling how most current smokers began smoking in their teens(Hersch 1143), that smoking among high school kids has risen very rapidly since the 1990s(Gruber 193), and that the smoking among adolescents is a health concern(McAlister et al. 24). Joni Hersch goes on to describe that in an effort of the campaigns to forbid smoking in school and to target the tobacco companies, because they seem to target their ads towards teens, dont appear to be working. Adolescents do continue to smoke. Because adult smokers generally begins smoking in their teens, the behavior of teenagers largely determines the size of the future smoking population(Hersh 1145). Hersh made a good point in this sentence, then she went on to describe how with teens that live with both parents, plan to attend college, and consider religion important have lower smoking percentages. The understanding from this may be that the adolescents that are smokers today and have been for twenty years may have started when they were in their teens and because of the other pressures of life styles, or lack of education, the teen continued to smoke. This could be a problem that may be reported to the city schools and city councils, to be of some interest. If by large numbers the people as a whole can start proving that better academic performance, a hopeful future in a career, and a well built church may help deter teen smoking, then a city can use these necessities. The turnout would even mean better schools and funding for college education for adolescents who dont have these promises. The adolescents that start smoking at the young age start for some reason, the theory that social learning is provided by McAlister et al. describing that the theory proposes that direct and vicarious experiences with rewards and punishments in ones environment lead to the acquisition of behaviors and circumstances. That means that the environment an adolescent presides shapes his/her personality, belief system, and probably behavior (McAlister et al. 24). McAlister et al. describes a model that may sheed some light on what influences what.
A model to ponder

The model describes the casual relationships between environment, beliefs, personality, and behavior. The beliefs are influenced by their environment and behavior directly while personality is the driving factor between the beliefs and behavior and environment. The environment influences the personality but the personality doesnt influence the environment, the same way neither does the belief. These personality characteristics might be described as self-esteem, anxiety, and responsiveness to parents along with other adults and using peers and models and the source of their ideas; the beliefs would consider peer and parental reactions and psychopharmacological and heath effects (Mcalister et al. 25). The study in this article, using the model, they formulated some hypotheses. The first is because of persuasive information on the health hazards of cigarettes, most children who do not frequently observe smoking by others will tend to hold unfavorable beliefs about cigarettes. Teach your kids to not be around people who smoke, being around the smoke is dangerous, dangerous like running with scissors. The next hypothesis is children who observe smoking by family and peers will tend to develop favorable beliefs about cigarettes. Their third hypothesis states that depending on the individuals model of their life will set the standard of the tendency to begin smoking. Mcalister et al., from the Social Psychology Quarterly, describes some ideas that can be adjusted to mention once more.

Some adolescents will have a tendency to smoke from the appearance on the media and from peers, and may begin very quickly due to a rebellious personality (Mcalister et al. 30) or some depressing lifestyle; other kids will just look at people who smoke and think gross. The key to solving some of our problems with adolescent smoking is to ask your self what type of adolescent did I raise, or raising, and how will the belief system and manners I teach that child affect the way they view smoking. The results from the quarerly proved positive results.

The results state that parents smoking affects health beliefs (more parents smoke, the less one is likely to believe smoking has health consequences), friends smoking affects popularity beliefs, enjoyment beliefs, and health beliefs (the more of ones friends who smoke the more likely one is to believe that smoking has popularity consequences and the less likely one is to believe smoking has health consequences), and parents instructions affect popularity beliefs such that the more parents encourage smoking, the more likely one is to believe smoking will make him or her more popular. A parent that isnt say no might as well be saying yes.

The adolescents have access to all types of stimuli; magazines are one that can advertise. (Ratneshwar and Pechmann 237) If adolescents are viewing these magazines with advertisements, then why do we still allow the adolescents to view these magazines? The adolescent may see the glamour in smoking a cigarette and think their other wise about smoking than to not.
Regulation

Why is smoking legal? It kills you. It destroys you. It brings you good luck. When one does smoke it helps relax but where are these people smoking? Why is it legal for a smoker to sit down next to you and smoke, maybe you dont want to smell smoke. Maybe it is harmful to my health that you smoke around me, if you are able to smoke then I should be about to bonk you on the shoulder with my baseball bat. The United States has outlawed smoking in restaurants in most states, has made age to buy cigarettes at the low 18-21( Gruber 198 and 1149), and excise taxation. (Gruber 197) Gruber also describes that there is strong penalty for the sale to any minor at any establishment. These are all great movements towards the perfect smoke free society that we dream about.

Smoking is legal because the people made it legal and it will not change. The articles I gathered and read, all said the same thing. Grubers article describes a very intense description on the regulations that our fine country has mandated. Hersch told all about her study and how adolescents are effected by their peers beliefs that despite all the regulations, teens still say its easy to get cigarettes. Mcalister et al. told me how adults became smokers while Ratneshwar and Pechmann and Kirby talk about perception of peers and parents that influence adolescent smoking.
Conclusion

The general census among the articles brings to light the ideas that peer pressure, parental example, adolescent behavior and view on life, and regulations have played a major role in the adolescent movement to continue buying and smoking cigarettes. The summary I gain from the articles is that parents can teach their children to not smoke. If a parent can teach an adolescent to now play with guns then the parents can teach that same child to stay away from smoking cigarettes.

A few years back I remember the movement for adolescents to preserve their virginity. That movement is still taking place to this day; with all the diseases and unhealthy effects that come from promiscuous sex, adolescents have taught themselves that maybe its not cool. Teach the adolescent to be a leader in his/her community and dont smoke. One can deter that the reverse effect of NOT smoking may be even cooler than smoking.














Works cited

Jonathan Gruber. Tobacco at the Crossroads: The Past and Future of Smoking Regulation in the United States. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 15, No. 2. (Spring, 2001), pp. 193-212.



Alfred L. McAlister; Jon A. Krosnick; Michael A. Milburn. Causes of Adolescent Cigarette Smoking: Tests of a Structural Equation Model. Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 1. (Mar., 1984), pp. 24-36.



Joni Hersch. Teen Smoking Behavior and the Regulatory Environment. Duke Law Journal, Vol. 47, No. 6, Twenty-Ninth Annual Administrative Law Issue. (Apr., 1998), pp. 1143-1170.



Robert A. Johnson; John P. Hoffmann. Adolescent Cigarette Smoking in U.S. Racial/Ethnic Subgroups: Findings from the National Education Longitudinal Study. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 41, No. 4. (Dec., 2000), pp. 392-407.



Phyllis L. Ellickson et al. Social Context and Adolescent Health Behavior: Does School-Level Smoking Prevalence Affect Students' Subsequent Smoking Behavior? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 44, No. 4. (Dec., 2003), pp. 525-535.



James B. Kirby. The Influence of Parental Separation on Smoking Initiation in Adolescents. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 43, No. 1. (Mar., 2002), pp. 56-71.



Cornelia Pechmann; S. Ratneshwar. The Effects of Antismoking and Cigarette Advertiseing on Young Adolescents Perceptions of Peers Who Smoke. The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 21, No. 2. (Sep., 1994), pp. 236-251.