Abstract
Relations among measures of adolescent behavior were examined to determine whether cigarette smoking fits into a structure of problem behaviors—behaviors that involve normative transgression—or a structure of health-related behaviors, or both. In an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of 1782 male and female high school adolescents, four first-order problem behavior latent variables—sexual intercourse experience, alcohol abuse, illicit drug use, and delinquency—were established and together were shown to reflect a second-order latent variable of problem behavior. Four first-order latent variables of health-related behaviors—unhealthy dietary habits, sedentary behavior, unsafe behavior, and poor dental hygiene—were also established and together were shown to reflect a second-order latent variable of health-compromising behavior. The structure of relations among those latent variables was modeled. Cigarette smoking had a significant and substantial loading only on the problem-behavior latent variable; its loading on the health-compromising behavior latent variable was essentially zero. Adolescent cigarette smoking relates strongly and directly to problem behaviors and only indirectly, if at all, to health-compromising behaviors. Interventions to prevent or reduce adolescent smoking should attend more to factors that influence problem behaviors.
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Turbin, M. S., Jessor, R., & Costa, F. M. (2000). Adolescent cigarette smoking: Health-related behavior or normative transgression? Prevention Science, 1(3), 115–124.
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Acknowledgments
The data for this study were collected under a grant award from the William T. Grant Foundation (88119488) to Richard Jessor. Data analysis and writing of this paper were supported by a grant award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (032752) to Frances M. Costa. We thank Angela Bryan, Charles M. Judd, Jani Little, and Gary H. McClelland for advice and comments on an earlier version of this paper. The research was approved by the University IRB, and each participant and a parent provided signed, informed consent.
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Turbin, M.S., Jessor, R., Costa, F.M. (2017). Explaining Smoking Behavior in Adolescence. In: Problem Behavior Theory and Adolescent Health . Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51349-2_17
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