The Social Image of the Young Female Smoker

Community college students (N = 229) read a brief narrative about a young female college student and rated her on 14 bipolar scales. Half the subjects read a version in which the protagonist smoked, and half an otherwise identical version in which she didn't. Although most subjects recalled the protagonist's smoking status, very few recognized this as the focal variable in the experiment. Subjects rated the heroine less positively for social attractiveness (p less than 0.001) and personal resourcefulness (p less than 0.01) when she was represented as a smoker. They specifically considered the smoking protagonist more masculine (p less than 0.01), less feminine (p less than 0.001), less healthy (p less than 0.001), a poorer student (p less than 0.001), less wise (p less than 0.001), less self-disciplined (p less than 0.001), less sophisticated (p less than 0.001), and less gentle (p less than 0.02). Non-smoking subjects also rated the smoking heroine as less (physically) attractive (p less than 0.05), although smoking subjects did not discriminate significantly.