Social factors in college student smoking behavior

Student Smoking Behavior

Given that the health risks of smoking are very well-known, one would think that smoking would be rare behavior among college students. After all, the average college student is not only young enough to have been exposed to anti-smoking education throughout their lifetimes, but might also values education more than their same-age peers who are not students. However, according to the research, young people, including college students, do smoke. In fact, college students may actually smoke more than their peers outside of college. What this suggests is that there is a social factor linked to smoking behavior. As a result, I would expect to be able to observe more students smoking when in social situations than in non-social situations.

Assumptions

I began with three assumptions about smoking behavior. The first assumption was that approximately one-third of observed college students would smoke. The second assumption was that students would be more likely to smoke in a social environment than in a school environment. The third assumption was that students who smoked would not self-identify as smokers. To test these assumptions, I engaged in basic observation of students in two environments: in a quad on campus where smoking is not prohibited and in a bar. Then, if students were observed to be smoking, I approached them to ask them about their smoking habits, concentrating on whether they self-identified as smokers or social smokers.

Sociocultural Influences

The results suggested that there is a highly social component of smoking behavior. In general, smoking is seen as an unacceptable behavior. Therefore, even people who were observed smoking were reluctant to identify themselves as smokers. Instead, they made attempts to differentiate themselves from smokers by qualifying their behavior, often claiming that they were occasional or social smokers. This seemed to be true in many cases where their self-described smoking behavior included daily consumption of cigarettes, which suggested smoking that was more than social. However, I failed to ask them if they had gone out or engaged in other social behavior each of the preceding days, which means that it is possible, if not probable, that some of them had limited their smoking to social situations.

My results were in line with what I expected to find after examining the results by Levinson et al. (2007). In their research, they discovered that approximately one-fourth of all college students are smokers (Levinson et al., 2007). Furthermore, they discovered that many of these smokers were deniers, who denied being smokers despite current smoking behavior (Levinson et al., 2007). They suggested that social pressure kept them from self-identifying as smokers. These social pressures included: having peers that were non-smokers, dating non-smokers, and concerns about addiction (Levinson et al., 2007). Furthermore, when one looks at all tobacco product usage, a full one-third of college students would be considered smokers (Schorr, 2013).

Psychological Factors

In addition, smoking is linked to other risky behavior such as binge drinking and having multiple sexual partners (Schorr, 2013). In this way, social smokers may share a common cause with these other high-risk behaviors. Examining these high risk factors, which is outside of the scope of this study, might help explain smoking behaviors. Moreover, the more smoking experience that people have, the more likely they are to endorse other smoking-related beliefs (Schweizer et al., 2014).

Biological Factors

Regardless of how smoking behavior begins, there is a physiological component to addiction. This addiction component can be explained through the frequency of smoking behaviors. Although many of the students made attempts to differentiate themselves from smokers by qualifying their behavior, often claiming that they were occasional or social smokers, many of them still described smoking behavior that included daily consumption of cigarettes, which suggested a physiological addiction.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to realize that psychological models alone cannot account for all smoking behavior in college students. For example, one of the socio-cultural behaviors that appears to be linked to smoking behavior is drinking behavior. While smoking has not always been considered an anti-social behavior, it is becoming increasingly unpopular. Smoking is banned in many localities and, with its known health impact, is seen as an unhealthy behavior. Therefore, it makes sense that people continue to use alcohol usage as a reason to engage in anti-social or otherwise unacceptable behaviors. However, it is important to look at other explanations for smoking behavior as well. The socio-cultural model may help explain why people begin to smoke, but biological models help explain why people continue to smoke. Smoking in college students may be a social phenomenon, but there is also a biological addiction component that cannot be explained through solely psychological consequences.