Adolescent smoking, toughmindedness, and attitudes to authority

This study investigated personality and other correlates of cigarette smoking among 193 adolescents. No support was found for the suggestion that more young females than males are engaged in smoking. Male smokers were observed to score high on a measure of psychoticism (P), although no relationship was found between smoking and any of the personality dimensions among females. Furthermore, male smokers had negative attitudes toward the “army”, while female smokers had negative attitudes toward “law”. Finally, only among females was an association found between respondents' smoking behaviour and that of siblings. These findings were interpreted in the light of theories of smoking.