Emotional intelligence as a predictor of adolescent smoking cessation success

Emotional Intelligence and Adolescent Smoking

The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of emotional intelligence on the success of various strategies to prevent smoking in adolescents. A number of methods have been attempted including in-school programs, clinical smoking interventions, increasing tobacco tax, and an anti-smoking media campaign. All of these programs have demonstrated some ability to reduce smoking in adolescents. However, none of them have proven to be 100% effective in stopping adolescent smoking. This study will examine the role of emotional intelligence in the decision to engage, or not engage in smoking behaviors.

This study is based on correlational research design, as it seeks to explore the relationship between two variables. This study will utilize a survey that combines elements of emotional intelligence, personality traits, family and cohort smoking behaviors, and information from various cessation programs. It will compare emotional intelligence scores to the other items on the survey. It will categorize the other study results so that emotional intelligence scores can be isolated from other variables that might effect the propensity to begin smoking, or difficulty stopping smoking once one has started. It will use a quantitative design as its basis.

In this study emotional intelligence, will the independent variable. Emotional intelligence is the culmination of many factors in one's life. There is little that one can do to improve emotional intelligence, at least on a short-term basis. The emotional intelligence of a person is expected to remain somewhat constant over time, unless something drastic happens to change it. Therefore, emotional intelligence will represent the factor in the study that cannot be reasonably changed through actions taken in this research study. Emotional intelligence resembles a personality trait more than an experimental instrument.

The dependent variable of the study will be smoking behaviors in adolescents. Smoking behaviors represent a choice, at least in the beginning. The individual chooses to smoke or not to smoke. Ultimately, it is the person themselves that makes this decision. The decision that they make is based on many factor, one of which is closely tied to their level of emotional intelligence. Their decision to smoke is the variable that will be "manipulated" through the use of smoking cessation programs, such as GottaQuit.com.

There are a number of confounding variables that will affect the results of this study. For instance, a family history of smoking will lead to an increased risk of smoking in adolescence. Other factors such as gender, race, and economic status will also have an effect on the decision to smoke as a teen. How many times the teen has tried to quit in the past will also have an effect on the success of the smoking cessation program. These confounding variables could skew the results in either direction if there are a significant number of sample subjects with a particular trait.

In order to account for and determine the effects of confounding variables, survey questions will be included to identify these variables within the individual subject. These results will be cross tabulated to determine if differences exist across the various categories of participants. This will help the researcher to identify the effects of confounding variables that might be present in the sample population. Many of these variables are the result of previous life experience and cannot be eliminated experimentally. Therefore, we must identify those that have a potential for affecting the results of the study and statistically address them.

Study Population

This study will involve a random sample of 200 adolescents between the ages of 13-18 in a nearby metropolitan area. The study will consist of 100 males and 100 females. They will be selected from a sample of area high school students that have been enrolled in the smoking cessation program "GottaQuit.com." Some of these students will have enrolled voluntarily and others as a result of disciplinary action by the high school guidance counselor. The teens will require parental consent in order to participate in the study. Assistance with administration and identification of potential study participants will be obtained from school administration.

Participation in the study will be random and the researcher will not have control over the participants selected. The researcher will be provided a list of potential participants through guidance counselor lists of enrollees in the GottaQuit program. The sample population will include a variety of study participants, including males, females, and those of many races present at the school. Therefore, the results will better reflect the population at large and will be more easily generalized to the general population.

Instrumentation

This study consists of a two-phase survey. Part a of the survey investigates demographic information, whether their parents smoked, and other information that might effect the results of the study. Part B consists of an investigation of the emotional intelligence level of the participant. Parts a and B. will be administered prior to completing the GottaQuit smoking cessation program.

Two months after completion of the GottaQuit program, the participants will be administered the third part of the survey. At this time the emotional intelligence portion of the survey will be re-tested to determine the internal reliability of the survey questionnaire.

This will consist of questions designed to measure the success of the smoking cessation program. The reliability of the survey instrument was assessed using Cronbach Alpha. It was found to have a Cronbach Alpha of 0.90, which is considered to be an acceptable level of internal consistency. It also had an internal test-retest reliability of 0.78 the survey instrument was Likert type.

Schutte et al. (1998) found that there are four factors in emotional intelligence. They are:

Optimism/Mood Regulation - Those that have the ability to maintain a positive emotional outlook or that have the ability to control emotions under pressure have the greatest degree of emotional intelligence.

Utilization of emotions - Those that have the ability to use emotional impact or to use major events for personal development are associated with greater emotional intelligence.

Appraisal of Emotions - This means the ability to judge the emotions that others are feeling using facial cues and expressions.

Social Skills - This refers to the ability to empathize or relate to other people's emotions.

These factors were used to develop the Emotional Intelligence portion of the study. The study encompassed all four of these skill areas, placing equal weight on all four factors.

Assumptions and Limitations

As with any survey-based study, there are several assumptions and limiting factors that may effect the results obtained. Self-reporting surveys can be criticized for their inability to measure the honesty of the test subject. It is assumed that the test subject will answer the questions in a way that reflect their true feelings. It is assumed that they are not making a conscious effort to give the researcher the answer that they want to hear, thus creating biased results.

This research design will attempt to measure the effect of emotional intelligence on the success of a smoking cessation program for adolescents. The success of any smoking cessation program depends on the internal motivation of the person and their desire to quit. It is assumed that the study participants have a desire to quit. However, motivational levels might vary among the study participants, particularly among those that are being forced to enter into the program through school disciplinary authorities.

This study will use a cross section of 200 males and females from the local high school population. There might be internal biases within the population that effect the ability of the researcher to draw conclusions that can be generalized to the population at large. This biases might or might not become apparent through the course of this investigation. Statistical means will be used to help discover and account for any such biases that might be present that are unique among the sample population.

Summary

This research study uses quantitative methodology to measure the effect of emotional intelligence on the success of failure of adolescents enrolled in a smoking cessation program. The results of this study will help researchers to understand the role of emotional intelligence on the ability of teens to stop smoking habits. It will help researchers to develop more effective smoking cessation programs targeted toward teens.

There are a number of confounding variables arising from external sources that might effect the outcome of the study. These variables include family history of smoking, social factors, race, and gender. These variables will divided into their respective categories so that they can be cross tabulated. If there is little difference between the groups, then it is not likely that the variable will have an effect on the outcome of the study. However, if differences are found between the groups then this variable could have an impact on the ability to draw conclusions. One of the key difficulties of this research study is the isolation of the independent and dependent variables. However, the research design has internal factors that will help to account for its limitations.

Integrative Summary and Critique

This study measured the effects of emotional intelligence on the success rates of adolescents enrolled in a smoking cessation program. A literature review was conducted prior to the conduct of this study. This literature review revealed that emotional intelligence was a factor in the development of coping mechanisms and leadership skills. The following critical literature review will demonstrate the importance of these research findings in relation to the entire body of literature in the study.

Of the respondents to the survey, 48% were found to be male. The mean score for emotional intelligence was 11.7 on a 20 point scale. The Standard deviation for the group was 4.90. T-tests indicated that females had slightly higher Emotional Intelligence scores than male respondents, but the difference was not found to be statistically significant. Emotional Intelligence scores were not found to be racially significant. The following races were identified during the study: Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American. The 16- to 18-year-old age group was found to have higher emotional intelligence scores than the 13- to 15-year-old group. This may be the result of maturation, or more years of life experience. T-test revealed no other statistical differences in the scores of groups of test participants. These results do not raise concerns over differences between groups as a contributing factor to bias. They support the successful isolation of the variables and the absence of biases that could skew results.

Among all groups identified, those with emotional intelligence scores had significantly greater success with the smoking cessation program than did those with low emotional intelligence scores. Females displayed both higher emotional intelligence an greater ability to stop smoking than did males. However, it cannot be assumed that both of these factors are related in this case and further isolation of these test groups would be helpful in determining if this correlation is significant.

This study revealed a correlation between high emotional intelligence and higher family income. There are many reasons why this may occur, one of which might be educational in nature, or related to higher social functioning within the family unit, but this could not be determined through the course of this study. Although this would appear to be a factor that could skew the results of the study, there was no significant difference between high income and low income adolescents in the ability to stop smoking. Therefore, this was not a factor causing bias as far as this study is concerned.

Critical Literature Review

Understanding Emotional Intelligence and Addictive Behavior

Self-talk refers to the internal dialogue that everyone has with themselves on a daily basis. This private world is the key to understanding our goals, motivations, and how we respond to our environment. Self-talk has been observed to be one of the best ways to change behaviors and attitudes (Depape,.et al., 2006). By teaching someone to change their self-talk, one can effect a change in self-regulation. Self-talk was considered to be a significant predictor of emotional intelligence. There is a positive connection between self-talk and emotional intelligence (Depape,.et al., 2006). This same study found that gender was not a predictor of emotional intelligence.

Susan Dunn specializes in the topic of Emotional Intelligence and addiction. She reminds us that between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. Within that space, we must make a choice (Dunn, 2007). This is an element that is often overlooked by modern psychologists. It is easy to forget the human side of psychology, the part of us that resides in freewill. This side of human response to a stimulus is difficult to measure and adds an element of random chance to any learning process or analysis. An addiction skews response towards a particular action, more so than in the non-addicted person. The addict does not have as much freedom of choice as the non-addict.

Once must be careful not to blame the substance for this loss of freedom. The alcohol bottle does not pick itself up and the cigarette does not force its way into the mouth and light itself. The addict must make a choice to engage in the activity. Dunn (2007) points to a study where a cohort of 54 long-term heroine users were found not to have an addiction. This debunked claims that heroine was the most addictive drug. The reason for the findings was that the users had developed social rituals and ways of using heroine that produced a controlled use of heroine. One user had been using heroine in this way for 23 years and did not become addicted (Dunn, 2007).

The release of dopamine is the ultimate reward for any addict, regardless of the substance (Dunn, 2007). This release is responsible for the pleasure that is associated with addictions. Typically, when one speaks of the "high" that one feels, it brings to mind more dangerous and explicit substances, such as crack, or meth,. However, researchers warn us not to underestimate the addictive actions of nicotine (Dunn, 2007). The nicotine rate is almost 70% for all smokers (Dunn, 2007). Addiction becomes as automatic response to fulfill a craving.

Addictions are a learned helplessness. One becomes helpless to overcome the need to satiate a need. Emotional intelligence can be the key to learning many other skills, such as anger management, self-empowerment, and positive self-talk, which can give the person tools to help control their automatic urges (Dunn, 2007). Those with greater emotional intelligence often seek the help of others more often than those with lower emotional intelligence (Dunn, 2007).

Dunn makes several compelling arguments that are difficult to with which to find fault. The most important argument that she makes is that no one has the expressed intent to become an addict. There is always an underlying reason to start an addictive behavior. The real motivation behind the first puff or the first drink is always to relive a problem such as depression, anger, sadness, or simply to have fun. The addiction is the product of these other behaviors. The irony is that the addiction seldom relieves the underlying causes of the condition, instead it will often make them worse (Dunn, 2007).

If one considers the impact of these statements, it is easy to see how emotional intelligence might play a role in the ability to quit smoking. Emotional Intelligence will play in important role in the ability to respond to the stimulus. Dunn brings up the point that researchers can successfully motivate addicts to quit by offering to pay them to do so (Dunn, 2007).. This technique has been a successful method for getting addicts to quit in order to participate in a research study such as this one. This response sheds light on the importance of considering an addiction to be a conscious choice, rather than a predetermined destiny.

There are many factors that served as confounding factors in this research study. It is easy to add up all of the confounding variables and to develop a profile of a cigarette addict. For instance, one might look at the statistics and determine that at male, whose parents both smoked, and that was suffering from depression would be a likely candidate to be a nicotine addict. However, within these assumptions one can always find someone that meets this description, but that is a non-smoker, or that smoked for a short time and then easily quit. Profiling may help to predict who is a risk for a smoking addiction, but it cannot tell us anything about individual willpower or motivations.

Emotional Intelligence allows a person to accomplish their goals, instead of something else. For instance, a person that is emotionally intelligent might recognize that a certain event makes them depressed. They can actively avoid this behavior and seek the root cause for this dilemma. However, a person that lacks emotional intelligence might not realize where the true cause of their affliction lies. They might seek to relieve their depression and end up with a smoking addiction that only serves to make them more depressed. They end up with a smoking addiction, instead of relieving their depression, which was their original intent.

Emotional Intelligence gives the person tools that they can use to cope with stressful situations. For instance, when faced with a test that invokes a sense of stress, they might use reflection, appraisal, social rules, or time management skills to cope with the stress (Pau, et al., 2004). This study indicated that those with lower emotional intelligence often engaged in behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and risk taking as a reaction to a stressful situation (Pau, et al., 2004).

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to appraise and manage stressful events, including emotions that cause arousal in a person. Emotional intelligence involves the ability to perceive emotions in one's self and other, to able to manage emotions, and to manage relationships are the major components of emotional intelligence (Pau, et al., 2004). In this study, it was discovered that several demographic factors were associated with higher emotional intelligence than others. For instance, it was found that females had higher mean emotional intelligence scores than males. Likewise, higher income also appeared to be associated with higher emotional intelligence. However, these observations cannot be considered causal without further study.

It could be suggested that the differences in emotional intelligence scores among these demographic groups are the result of social conditioning. For instance, higher emotional intelligence in females is likely to be the result of social expectations. Females are stereotypically more emotional than males, therefore they could be expected to be more emotionally intelligent than males as well. However, these are only possible explanations for the results obtained in this study. Further research is needed to understand these differences in emotional intelligence.

The first step to being able to control one's emotions is the ability to recognize and appraise them. If one cannot first place a name on their emotion, it is difficult to develop an appropriate response. It has been suggested that emotional intelligence become an important factor in stressful work conditions, such as the nursing profession (Cadman & Brewer, 2001). Emotional Intelligence is becoming recognized more as an important factor in the ability to cope with the stresses of life, regardless of their source.

Self-esteem and optimism were found to play an important role in the ability to adult Finnish employees to cope with stress in the workforce (Makikangas & Kinnunen, 2003). Adolescents that have failed to develop appropriate coping mechanisms to the stresses in high school will have a poor base from which to cope when job related stresses begin to press in on them. Optimism was found to play a more important role for females than males in the Finnish study (Makikangas & Kinnunen, 2003). Likewise, females with higher emotional intelligence were more likely to find other ways to cope with stress than males in this study. Females that could find other ways to cope with the stresses around them were more likely to quit smoking than those that could not find other ways to cope with the stress.

Emotional Intelligence has been called the "integrating threat weaving consistency into organization effectiveness" (Watkin, 2000, abstract). When one considers this statement in relation to smoking cessation success at any age, emotional intelligence plays a similar role. Emotional Intelligence is gaining acceptance as a measurement tool, with a particular emphasis on job placement, performance assessment, and in predicting overall job satisfaction in an employee (Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2004). The acceptance of emotional Intelligence as a valid measurement tool in the workforce validates its acceptance elsewhere. One must remember that behind every adult in the workforce, there was once an adolescent who had to learn the coping skills necessary for later life. Therefore, much more emphasis needs to be placed on the development of emotional intelligence in the middle and high school settings.

The transition from middle school to high school represents a time of stress. It has been proposed that the introduction of a program to increase emotional intelligence might provide students the tools that they need to cope with these stresses in a productive way Results of the study in question indicate that increasing emotional intelligence also increases self-worth. The study suggests that those with high to average levels of emotional intelligence cope with the stresses of the transition better than those with low emotional intelligence (Qualiter, Whiteley, and Hutchinson, 2007). This study measured the results of an intervention program designed to increase emotional intelligence in those students. Those with a low baseline emotional intelligence score responded positively to the program. However, in some cases the students responded negatively, resulting in lowered emotional intelligence scores.

This study demonstrates that the quality of the program is important and that a poorly designed program can have a negative impact on student outcomes. However, it also indicates that emotional intelligence can help reduce some of the stresses associated with the transition from middle to high school. When one considers the role of stress in the decision to begin smoking as a way to cope, the benefits of a well-designed program to help ease the transition from middle to high school are apparent. Programs to help students develop emotional intelligence and coping skills could give them the skills that they need to avoid smoking and other addictions as a means to cope with stress.

Tice, Bratsalvsky, & Baumeister, (2001) found that stress reduction and the long-term regulation of stress were more important than impulse control in the ability to control addictive behaviors. The focus of many smoking cessation programs is the control of impulses when they occur. However, even if impulses are controlled for the moment, if the stresses still persist, the impulse will be likely to return, Focusing on the long-term reduction of stress will result in craving decrease. This philosophy focuses on the reduction of the stimulus, not the control of the impulse. This philosophy incorporates the principals of emotional intelligence into the traditional smoking cessation paradigm.

In a study that addressed the ability of emotional intelligence to help cope with daily stressors and psychological factors such as type a personality and perceived well-being (Day, Therrien, & Carroll, 2005). This study demonstrated that emotional intelligence had the ability to moderate the ability to cope with daily hassles. However, for type a personalities, emotional intelligence had little effect on the difference between the strain felt by the person and their emotional intelligence. This study demonstrates that the effect of emotional intelligence will differ from person to person and that personality plays an important role in the effect emotional intelligence will have on the ability of the person to deal with the daily stresses of life.

The results of this study indicate that those with higher levels of emotional intelligence will have a greater chance for success in a smoking cessation program. However, our exploration of other research also indicated that emotional intelligence could be taught. It indicated that there were measures that could be taken to increase emotional intelligence and to increase the likelihood that a smoking cessation program would be successful.

The success of telephone smoking cessation counseling has been found to increase the rate of success in quitting smoking (Wincoff, et al., 2006). However, enrollment in these programs was low on the part of parents. However, the current research study informed us that enrollment is not enough. The person must have the desire to quit, regardless of their age or the quality of the program. The successful smoking cessation program combines the impulse control techniques combined with a program designed to increase emotional intelligence.

Conclusion

The signs of stress can be divided into physical, emotional, and behavioral reactions. Smoking is a behavioral reaction that is typically associated with stress ("Emotional Intelligence Activities for Teens Ages 13-18," n.d.). Regardless of the cause of the stress, the teen has chosen to react the same way, by smoking. Encouraging the teen to develop less destructive means to deal with stress is the first key to helping them to stop smoking. In order to be successful in a smoking cessation program the teen must develop other means to increase their emotional intelligence so that they can learn new ways to cope with the stress that had led to the addiction. Until the teen is able to do this, it is unlikely that they will be able to stop smoking with any degree of success.

Stress is a part of life. Making a recommendation that the teen reduce stress is unrealistic. Many times the source of the stress of from sources that are beyond their control. Therefore, the best that one can do is to provide the teen with the tools that they need to cope with the stress in a way that is productive, or at least not destructive. This coincides with the development of emotional intelligence.

Programs designed to help students increase their emotional intelligence play an important role in smoking prevention and smoking cessation programs for adolescents and adults. However, these programs are critical in adolescents so that they do not develop smoking habits in the first place. The more skills the student has at their disposal, the less likely they are to need to resort to destructive behaviors in order to help them cope.

Studies indicate that smokers that use cessation medications increase their chances of success (Wincoff, et al., 2005). However, this only addresses the physical side of the addiction. In order to fully combat a smoking habit, one must eliminate the cause. As we discovered through our literature review, stress is the primary reason for smoking addictions. Smoking goes beyond the physical addiction. The most successful smoking cessation program will include both medication to decrease the physical urges, but also will provide the teen with the skills that they need to cope with the stresses that abound in their lives.

Considerable emphasis has been placed on the role of parental influence on the children to smoke. It was found that when the parent quit, adolescents were less likely to smoke, unless the other parent continues to smoke (Chassin, et al., 2002). This study is important to this study for several reason. In order to understand the reasons behind adolescent smoking one must examine their social environment. The emphasis of this study was on the effect of emotional intelligence on the tendency of adolescents to smoke. The effect that parents have on their children by the example that they provide is a proven fact. Parents have a greater influence on their than they realize. When adolescents see their parents using smoking as a way to cope with daily stress, they imitate the same behavior when they are under stress. It is the example that parents provide that has the greatest impact on the social factors involved in smoking.

Perhaps the most important factor to stem from the current research study is the connection between smoking and stress. It is important to realize that smoking is a behavior, rather than a reaction. Smoking is an outward sign of stress and the inability to cope with this stress. Smoking is not a reaction to stress. Smoking is the end result of a feeling. Between the feeling and the behavior is a decision that smoking will help to satisfy a craving of some type.

We found that the ultimate reward for an addict is the dopamine release. Dopamine counteracts the compounds that are responsible for stress. The addict is attempting to counteract he physiological and psychological reactions to stress. However, there are other ways to achieve this means without developing an addiction. When something causes stress, the natural reaction is to attempt to alleviate this stress and return the body to a non-aroused state. Addicts use smoking, alcohol, and other forms of artificial stress relief as a means to counteract the stress reaction in the body. Emotional intelligence gives adolescents and adults the ability to avoid the stress react altogether.

The importance of emotional intelligence in the success of a smoking cessation program should be apparent by now. Many people do not knowingly choose behaviors that are considered to be unacceptable. They would rather choose those that they know would be accepted by their peers. Past research and media promotions have emphasized the role of peer pressure and parental example. However, this study indicates that the emphasis needs to be shifted to those that are related to increasing the adolescents self-efficacy and confidence in themselves to make their own decisions. Adolescent smoking will not be resolved all at once, but we can make progress by giving them the means to cope with today's increasingly stressful world.

Throughout the course of the research design, an emphasis was place on eternal factors that might represent confounding variables. These confounding variables were not found to be a significant factor in this research. However, this does not mean that they are unimportant. They still have an impact on the ability of each individual study. Some students will have more opportunities to interact in such as manner than others. Internal factors were found to be much more important than external factors in regards to the success of a smoking cessation program.

The most important concept that was discovered through this study was that the most successful smoking cessation program addresses many of the same things that served as confounding variables in this study. However, many of these factors cannot be changed. A person's emotional intelligence can be changed. We found that there are many factors that a person can control when it comes to smoking. When smoke is viewed as a behavior, rather than a physical illness or affliction, then we can begin to devise successful programs that will treat the world once and for all.

This study indicates that emotional intelligence can be changed and that it can be taught to a certain extent. Rather than treating emotional intelligence as a personality trait that is difficult to change, we discovered that one could take actions to improve the emotional intelligence of adolescents. As the adolescent increases their emotional intelligence, they will also increase their success in a smoking cessation program as well. There are many factors that can effect emotional intelligence, but many of these can be modified to reflect the best solution for developing coping mechanisms.

The coping mechanisms learned as an adolescent carry over into the adult workforce. This is perhaps one of the most important factors in addressing the issues at hand. We must keep in mind that children are all around and that they are watching us as adults. Parental example played an important factor in the decision of a student to engage in smoking or other addictive behaviors. However, the role of parents and their influence on their adolescent children is impressive.

Adolescents are perched at a difficult time in their life. They are no longer children and completely at the which of their parents. They have reached the age where they can reason and make decision for themselves. Once adolescents realize that smoking is a behavioral choice, rather then a reaction, it will help them to gain control over their impulses. The GottaQuit program represents a typical smoking cessation program. It was predicted that emotional intelligence would enhance the effectiveness of this program. The results of this support the hypothesis that students with high emotional intelligence are better equipped to deal with the stresses in life and that this leads to greater success in smoking cessation programs. This research highlights the importance of developing better programs to help combat stress at school and on the job later in life. The ability to combat stress is the key to eliminating addictive behaviors from the school and from the workplace.