Deterring the Onset of Smoking in Children: Knowledge of Immediate Physiological Effects and Coping with Peer Pressure, Media Pressure, and Parent Modeling¹

Entering seventh grade, most children believe that smoking endangers their long‐term health. Nevertheless, three sources of social pressure were found to often have an overriding influence to begin smoking: peers, models of smoking parents, and media. Interventions were developed to train children to cope with these pressures. Also stressed were immediate rather than long‐term physiological effects of smoking. A dependent measure was utilized that generates increased validity of self‐reports of smoking. A 10‐week investigation was completed with 750 male and female students entering the seventh grade. Rates of onset of smoking in treatment groups were significantly lower than in a pretest‐single posttest control group.