Smoking Motivation Factors

A checklist of the main occasions for smoking was administered to representative national samples of adolescent and adult smokers and ex‐smokers. Factor analysis yielded the same seven factors for both adolescents and adults. Five factors labelled ‘nervous irritation’, ‘relaxation’, ‘smoking alone’, ‘activity accompaniment’ and ‘food substitution’ were related, in different degrees, to amount of smoking, indices of addiction, attitude to the helpfulness of smoking, and the ability to give up smoking. Two further factors covered social aspects. Social smoking, as such, first increases in adolescence and then declines during adulthood, but smoking for reasons of Social Confidence, at its highest in early adolescence, declines consistently with age. There was no consistent relation between scores on the first five factors and age/sex differences in amount of smoking. Even while still light smokers, adolescents very quickly acquire the habits of ‘nervous irritation’ smoking, which is most closely correlated with addiction. Relaxation smoking requires a more extended learning process. But addiction is highest among those who are both ‘nervous irritation’ and ‘relaxation’ smokers. This finding, among others, provides support for a model of smoking motivation, developed by Tomkins. Some implications for research on methods of breaking the smoking habit are discussed.