Parental and Peer Influences on Adolescent Smoking: A Literature Review

Abstract

Smoking cigarettes has been widely accepted as a negative health behaviour associated with many serious risks. Adolescent smoking is of particular interest from a public health perspective as the initiation of smoking in adolescence has been associated with higher addiction rates in adulthood. This review of the literature will examine the influence of social support networks, particularly parents and peers, on the initiation and escalation of adolescent smoking. The influence of social support networks primarily operates through the social learning theory, in which the adolescent mimics the behaviour of those in their social network. The literature suggests that while parents are more influential in young adolescence, peers become the main source of influence in later adolescence through processes known as peer selection and peer influence. Parents can positively affect adolescents’ smoking behaviour through effective communication and maintenance of a healthy parent-child relationship. Peers can also positively influence smoking behaviour through the same mechanisms of peer influence and selection. Knowledge of how parents and peers influence adolescent smoking initiation and escalation can potentially assist in developing public health programming that targets this high-risk behaviour.