Romantic partner and friend influences on young adult cigarette smoking: comparing close others' smoking and injunctive norms over time

Abstract

The current study assessed associations between romantic partner and friend smoking, their approval for smoking, and young adult cigarette smoking over time. The study examined how both friend and partner smoking and injunctive norms predict smoking, using 35 waves of data collected weekly during participants' 1st year in college. Several analytic techniques were used in an attempt to eliminate the effects of friend and partner selection as an explanation for the obtained results. Controlling for selection processes, the results support the independent influence of both friend and partner behavior and injunctive processes in predicting smoking. In addition, romantic partner behavior and perceived approval were found to be particularly predictive of smoking, above and beyond the behavior and perceived approval of friends.