Teen Smoking Influenced by Middle-School Peers, Parents | Psych Central News - 0 views
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Vicki Davis on 15 Apr 13"Investigators determined that intervention to counteract friends' influence may have more of an effect in junior high than in high school, and that parents remain influential on smoking behavior through high school - indicating another possible intervention target. "Based on social developmental model research, we thought friends would have more influence on cigarette use during high school than junior high school," said first author Yue Liao, M.P.H., Ph.D. "But what we found was friends have greater influence during junior high school than high school. We think the reason may be that friends' cigarette use behavior may have a stronger influence on youth who start smoking at a younger age. During high school, cigarette use might represent the maintenance of behavior rather than a result of peer influence."