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British Journal of Social Psychology (2008), 47, 763780 q 2008 The British Psychological Society

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Smoking in the lived world: How young people make sense of the social role cigarettes play in their lives
Gary Fry1*, Sarah Grogan2, Brendan Gough1 and Mark Conner1
1 2

Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK
This qualitative study explored how young people (16- to 24-year olds), both smokers and non-smokers, talk about the social role of smoking in their everyday lives. In 22 focus group interviews, 47 high school children and 40 university undergraduates participated. On the basis of analyses, it is proposed that the perceived need to smoke cannot be reduced to addiction; cigarettes appear to play a complex social role in young peoples lives. In order to resist smoking, participants highlighted the need to provide an excuse to peers, and some reasons (e.g. an interest in sport for boys) were considered more legitimate than others. Cigarettes (certain brands) were also claimed to be used as a way of controlling other peoples perception of smokers, and also to serve as a social tool (for instance, to ll in awkward gaps in conversation). Additionally, smoking was argued to be subject to context (e.g. some schools possess a pro-smoking ethic, while others and universities are anti-smoking). Finally, it was claimed that stopping smoking is difcult since all of the foregoing social factors cannot easily be avoided. The ndings of this study compliment and enrich existing social psychological approaches to smoking in young people, and lay the basis for anti-smoking campaigns which take into account the complex social role cigarettes play in the lives of young people.

The health consequences of smoking are well documented. Additionally, the earlier an individual starts smoking, the greater the risk of lung cancer (Doll & Peto, 1981). Young smokers also have more respiratory infections, more coughs, more stress on their hearts, are less t, have a higher risk of strokes, and the younger they are when they start smoking the younger they are in developing heart disease (Department of Health, 2005). Previous research with adolescent participants has identied a number of factors associated with smoking, including self-efcacy (Conrad, Flay, & Hill, 1992; Ogden & Nicoll, 1997; Stacy, Sussman, Dent, Burton, & Flay, 1992), attitudes (Goddard, 1990), intentions (Norman & Tedeschi, 1989), self-esteem (Pfau & Van Bockern, 1994), and subjective norms (Aloise-Young, Graham, & Hansen, 1994). Other research has

* Correspondence should be addressed to Dr Gary Fry, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS2 9JT, UK (e-mail: g.fry@leeds.ac.uk).
DOI:10.1348/014466608X288818

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particularly identied behavioural risk factors (Kremers, Mudde, & De Vries, 2004) and socio-demographic risk factors such as parental, sibling, and peer smoking (Ogden & Nicoll, 1997), being a girl (Goddard, 1992), socio-economic status (Conrad et al., 1992), parental attitudes (MacDonald & Wright, 2002), quality of signicant relationships (van den Bree, Whitmer, & Pickworth, 2004), media inuence (McCool et al., 2003), school culture (Aveyard, Markham, & Cheng, 2003), concerns about weight (Potter, Pederson, Chan, Aubut, & Koval, 2004), and mood ( Whalen, Jamner, Henker, & Delno, 2001). Much recent research on smoking has employed the theory of planned behaviour (TPB Ajzen, 1991) as a heuristic with which to understand adolescents motivations for taking up or resisting smoking. The TPB is an extension of the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), which suggests that the proximal determinants of behaviour are intentions to engage in the behaviour and perceived behavioural control over the behaviour. Intentions are determined by attitudes (what one thinks about a behaviour), subjective norms (what signicant others would think about the behaviour), and perceived behavioural control. In smoking research with adolescents, the TPB has shown that intentions to smoke were most consistently predicted by attitudes and perceived behavioural control (McMillan, Conner, & Higgins, 2005). Smokers are signicantly more likely than nonsmokers to endorse positive smoking-related beliefs at all ages (1118 years of age), in addition to being less likely to agree with negative beliefs (Conner, Sandberg, McMillan, & Higgins, 2006). Smokers were also signicantly more likely than non-smokers to perceive support from signicant others for their smoking. These ndings differed, however, according to gender. For girls, social inuence was the most salient factor in determining who took up smoking, endorsing work by Saronson, Mankowski, Peterson, and Dinh (1992). This research supports suggestions that girls may be more likely to conceptualize smoking as cool (Shadel, Niaura, & Abrams, 2004), and to initiate smoking to gain indicators of power and status in school (see Plumridge, Fitzgerald, & Abel, 2002). In-depth qualitative work has also led to the suggestion that young people start smoking because they wish to look cool within the context of their peer groups. Many qualitative studies have shown that smoking is taken up by young people principally as a method by which they might integrate themselves within existing communities at school and in their neighbourhoods ( Frohlich, Potvin, Chabot, & Corin, 2002; Plumridge et al., 2002; Rugkasa et al., 2001). Young people claim that although adults smoke because they are addicted and cannot control smoking, they themselves are more likely to smoke for social reasons (Rugkasa et al., 2001). Social identity theory (SIT) has been employed as a heuristic with which to make sense of these ndings. Stewart-Knox et al. (2005) argue that adolescents may not believe that the decision to start smoking is born of direct persuasion; rather, young smokers suggest that they are striving to conform to the normative behaviours of peer groups with which they identify. Smoking therefore provides a means by which similarity within groups, and differences between groups, might be managed in order to establish a collective social identity. SIT suggests that individual smokers feel afliated to peer groups, and dene themselves as set against non-smoking groups or other smoking groups (Stewart-Knox et al., 2005). As stated above, patterns of smoking do differ between males and females. Although boys tend to start smoking at a younger age than girls (Owen & Bolling, 1995) and smoke more cigarettes (Goddard & Higgins, 1999), girls are less likely to be successful when trying to give up smoking (Muffat & Johnson, 2001). Indeed, at the age of 16, rates of smoking in girls are considerably higher than those in boys (Conner et al., 2006).

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One reason for this gender difference might be the fact that girls have fewer opportunities than boys to develop alternative cool identities. Plumridge et al. (2002) claim that while boys might practice sport and therefore smoke less (since tobacco inhibits performance), girls tend to focus on decoration (for instance, fashion) as a way of managing self-presentation, and this includes smoking cigarettes. The importance of developing a cool identity has been highlighted by many qualitative studies of smoking in young people. Nevertheless, young people perceive that there are other social factors involved. For instance, Johnson, Boles, Vaughan, and Kleber (2000) show that smoking in young people is related to drinking alcohol, and that heavy drinkers are more likely to smoke. Aveyard et al. (2003) claim that an institutions ethos (for instance, a school in which smoking is prevalent) has an impact on smoking patterns of young people. Bancroft, Wiltshire, Amos, and Parry (2002) argue that smoking is related to daily routines, such as occupying restrictive areas and smoking at set times of the day. And Collins, Maguire, and ODell (2002) claim that cigarettes are used as a social tool, the better to facilitate the interrelations enjoyed by young people on a daily basis. Smoking is therefore perceived by young people to be a complex phenomenon, involving many factors. One problem with many existing approaches to understanding smoking in adolescents may be the theory-driven nature of the approaches (e.g. TPB and SIT); these approaches certainly illuminate signicant aspects of smoking in adolescents, yet their methodological approach, which predetermines which factors are salient, may preclude the emergence of other signicant factors. One alternative to theory-driven approaches is to adopt a phenomenologically oriented methodological approach. Phenomenological approaches concern themselves with the lived world of individuals and the meaning they ascribe to their behaviours (Moran, 2000). Participants in a phenomenologically oriented study are encouraged to dene their own understanding of an experience. This phenomenological focus on the role of smoking in young peoples lives is useful in terms of developing successful anti-smoking campaigns. Rather than looking for only causal factors or overarching social processes which predispose young people to smoking, phenomenological approaches illuminate the meaning that young people ascribe to their smoking habits; they also allow for the complex nuances of everyday life to be detailed. Therefore, if young peoples perceptions of the role of smoking in their lives can be changed, then smoking cessation may be more likely. In order to make recommendations for such change, it is important rst to understand what young people believe the factors involved in this role are. What we wished to do in this study was to explore the reasons why smoking and non-smoking individuals (16 to 24-year olds) believe young people smoke. We wanted to focus particularly on how and why they believe they start, why they believe they continue to smoke, and the problems they perceive in stopping smoking. By focusing exclusively on the many varying components of smoking as perceived by young smokers themselves, we hoped to make an original contribution to the literature on smoking in young people. The study was a unique opportunity to investigate the views of young men and young women, smokers and non-smokers, as well as high school pupils and university students. One of the motivations behind this was to understand how anti-smoking campaigns might be more effectively targeted. Certain ways of talking about smoking may differ signicantly between groups varying in age, gender, smoking status, and social location, and it is essential to develop intervention strategies tailored for specic target groups which take these differences into account.

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Method
Design This study employed a focus group methodology, and a framework analysis based on the guidelines detailed in Krueger (1994). The underlying assumption of the study was fundamentally phenomenological that is, we took seriously individuals accounts of their lived experience, the meaning they ascribe to their everyday lives. Individual factors (e.g. smoking as a method of establishing a desired identity, smoking as a social tool, etc.) should not separated from all others, and the material that emerges takes the form of a complex, non-divisible understanding of any particular phenomenon as perceived through the eyes of participants. The focus group design involved between three and seven participants in each group. Focus group interviews allow people to articulate their understanding of an experience in an informal manner, interacting with peers to reach appropriate conclusions (see Heary & Hennessey, 2002). We believed that simulated peer groups would allow our young participants to elucidate their thoughts about smoking in a natural group setting. This is an effective way for individuals to articulate their own understanding of their experience. The interview schedule was designed on the basis of a literature review on smoking in young people. Many factors were included and grouped under the headings: routes to smoking; reasons for smoking; health issues; appearance issues; and stopping smoking. However, the interview schedule was sufciently exible to allow participants to generate their own understandings. This approach produced a great deal of material, allowing participants to explore in detail what smoking meant to them. Sample Ethical approval for this study was obtained through the University Ethics Committee. The sample in this study included 87 males and females, aged between 16 and 24 years, both smokers and non-smokers, from high schools and a university in Yorkshire. This number of participants is usual in qualitative research; the potential limitations in relation to generalizability associated with relatively small samples are balanced by the depth of material elicited. Table 1 shows the distribution of the sample.
Table 1. Smoking status of participants by gender and academic institution. High school pupils Source Smoking status Male Female Smokers 16 17 Non-smokers 6 8 University undergraduates Smokers 12 15 Non-smokers 5 8

The high school pupils were recruited by contacting relevant members of high school staff, while the university undergraduates were enlisted by e-mail and yers on campus. All participants were paid 10 for participation. Informed consent was obtained from each participant prior to the interviews. The focus group interviews took place, respectively in the high schools and in the Psychology department of the University, and were facilitated by the rst author.

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We tried to vary the composition of the groups, including all smokers groups, all nonsmokers, all male, all female, and variations of these dimensions. Table 2 table shows how the groups were composed.
Table 2. Composition of focus groups by gender, academic institution and smoking status. Interview 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Composition All female, university, smokers, and non-smokers All female, university, non-smokers All male, university, smoker, and non-smokers Male and female, university, smokers All male, university, smokers, and non-smokers Male and female, university, smokers All male, university, non-smokers All female, school, smokers All female, school, smokers, and non-smokers All female, university, non-smokers All female, school, smokers All male, school, smokers All female, university, smokers All female, school, non-smokers All male, school, non-smokers All male, school, smokers Male and female, university, smokers All female, university, smokers Male and female, university, smokers Male and female, school, non-smokers Male and female, school, smokers Male and female, school, smokers

The sessions began with the interviewer revealing that he was a smoker; this was done for the purposes of providing background to the study (the impact that this may have had on the dynamics of the interviews will be discussed below). Participants were then given a number of prompts about their views on smoking, such as Please tell me why you believe you started smoking/resisted smoking : : : and Please tell me what role you believe smoking/not smoking plays in your life : : : Participants were encouraged to discuss these views among themselves, with minimal input from the facilitator. The interviews each lasted around an hour and were then transcribed verbatim.

Analysis Framework analysis (Krueger, 1994) involves extracting quotations relevant to the research topic; checking for contextual elements and internal consistency; addressing the frequency, extensiveness, specicity, and intensity of comments; identifying big ideas; and nally arranging this material in terms of emerging themes. This approach allows the researcher to maintain the phenomenological focus on meaning in interviews (represented here by themes) while being sensitive to the interactional nature of focus group interviews. The original analyses carried out by the rst author were veried by the co-authors involved in the project. In total, 11 themes captured the great majority of the data.

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An analysis of the interrelations of these themes allowed us to generate a psychological understanding of smoking in young people. We were particularly mindful of the differences between male and female accounts of smoking, and also those between smokers and non-smokers, as well as those between high school pupils and university undergraduates. This attempt to maximize variation was intended to provide us with a range of perspectives on the social role of smoking for young people. Reection on the principal researchers role Any study which adopts a phenomenological approach should include personal details about the researcher. The rst author of the present paper both facilitated the interviews and carried out the analysis. He was 34 years old at the time, a casual smoker, and interested in applications of phenomenological ideas to social psychology. Nevertheless, as he conducted the research, he strove to set aside any pre-existing assumptions about the issue of smoking in young people. Although revealing that he was a smoker may have made it less likely that participants with strong anti-smoking views would have expressed these in fear of offending him, the decision was made to reveal this information for the purposes of encouraging disclosure, especially of smokers. It was hoped that revealing this personal information would enable participants who smoked to feel comfortable discussing their smoking experiences, while the fact that he smoked only casually might not perturb non-smokers from saying what they genuinely believed.

Results
Although many themes were generated by the data collection and analysis stages, we have chosen to focus on those aspects which relate directly to the social role smoking plays in young peoples lives because we feel that this approach is fruitful in allowing young people to directly modify their smoking habits. The following six issues were derived from elements present in all 11 emergent phenomenological themes. Starting smoking and gendered social identity There are many reasons why young people believe they start smoking. The smokers in our sample frequently cited being bored or curious. Indeed, the notion of peer pressure was rejected as a signicant factor in their smoking behaviour. Although young people in our sample admitted that peers can be a signicant inuence in their decision to try smoking, they also claimed that it is a choice they make:
MELANIE: Well I have tried smoking before but I wasnt that was just my choice, I wasnt thinking, All my friends are doing it so I should. That was just I was about sixteen and I thought, Well I might as well try one time. (female, school, smoker).

This emphasis on choice over compliance may well reect the privilege in western culture of agency over group conformity. Nevertheless, male and female non-smokers from both schools and university claimed that smokers have either weak personalities or big egos; in the former case, they conform to the group, and in the latter, they tend to be the leaders of groups. The notion of choice, however, is complicated by the fact that the decision to start smoking may be linked to social context. For instance, a number of our male

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participants argued that young women are subject to more pressure than young men, since young women:
KEVIN: : : : tend to have these, like, little, really small friendship groups, if they, if one of them suddenly stopped smoking, they would be out of that little sort of group, and then I think thered be more concern about the social reprisals [sic] of being rejected out of that group more than, like, guys would, because theres, girls tend to more sort of like typically bitchy or whatever. DUNCAN: Yeah, like guys would consider stopping smoking for health reasons, but girls would consider, oh, how would, would I still have friends intact? INTERVIEWER: Ah, right, I get you. [To Luke] Is that, do you think thats true? LUKE: Yeah. I agree with that. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah. So for girls, their social support network seems to be tighter than it is for boys? Boys can is it, is it that a boy DUNCAN: I think it relies on a fag, girls friendships relies on maybe that cigarette.

In other words, young women may be encouraged to smoke in order to t in with established groups, and if they do not, they may be criticized by other young women. We are aware that this material may have been specic to the context of these interviews. The quotation above emerged during an all male discussion at university in which young men might be enhancing masculine identity (as rational, relaxed, etc.) by pathologizing women. However, some young women in our sample agreed with this point, though others claimed that it is in fact young men who need to smoke in order to look macho (female, school, smoker) and to avoid being teased by male peers. Therefore, the decision to start smoking is generally regarded by young people as a choice which is subject to context. Additionally, young women, who are perceived to practice less sport than males (though by no means did this apply to all women in our sample), may have fewer social opportunities to develop a satisfactory identity. A number of both young men and young women from schools and the university in the present study agreed that this was the case. For instance, one of our female non-smoking school pupils claimed that boys can just drop their coats and play football anywhere, but girls cant. Gendered identities in relation to sport were found to include a further dimension. A number of our participants argued that while males will visit a gym and lift weights, enjoying pumping [and] sweating (male, university, non-smoker), young women tended to go the gym and look their best, [wearing] makeup and designer outts (male, university, smoker). One of our male university smoking undergraduates claimed that young women believe they are too posh to sweat, and a number of our female participants agreed with this, though only with regard to other young women and not themselves. This issue was also related to gendered identities, in the sense that young women claimed to exercise invariably to lose weight (for instance, in order to get a bikini body for a holiday female, university, smoker), whereas young men claimed to exercise to build muscle. It was suggested by several of our participants, both male and female, that a girl will not be attractive to a boy if she is muscular and sporty, whereas a boy will be attractive to a girl if he is. In short, it was claimed by both male and female participants that young women tend to either to sit and chat while watching young men play sport (for instance, commenting on their [attractive] legs female, school, smoker) or will exercise with the potential scrutiny of males in mind. However, there were a number of

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exceptions in the female university non-smoking undergraduates involved in the interviews, who were interested in sport and who claimed to exercise for tness and personal enjoyment. The use of excuses in resisting smoking Another important issue relating to gender and smoking emerged from our interviews. It concerns young peoples use of excuses when offered a cigarette by peers. Some excuses used to refuse smoking were regarded as ostensibly more legitimate than others, in the sense that peers advocating smoking tend to take them seriously as good reasons not to smoke. For instance, one of our male university non-smokers claimed:
JAMES: Sport was good for you and smoking was bad there didnt seem to be any benets of smoking. But I think that it gave a lot of us a good excuse [not to smoke]. Maybe when were talking about getting through the years, I think it gave a very good excuse and you could hold you head up high when you used that excuse.

According to our participants, therefore, an interest in sport is respected as a reason not to smoke, since it is well known that smoking impacts upon physical performance. This relates to the foregoing observation that young women practice less sport than young men, and in many cases they nd it impossible to claim this as a legitimate excuse not to smoke. In fact a young womens excuses seem limited to claiming that she has asthma (female, school, non-smoker) or that a relative has died or has been seriously ill through smoking; it was claimed by many of our participants that although such recourse to health issues are generally accepted, not everyone is in this position. In short, young men appear to have in sport not only an alternative way of establishing a social identity, but also a way of refusing cigarettes which is respected by smoking peers. Indeed, this can confer a benet upon young men in relation to young women:
KEITH: Especially at that age when youre going out to impress girls a lot of the time and if its a fourteen year old girl asking a fourteen year old lad if he wants a cigarette and the lad says no and its deemed cos youre sporty it almost looks good upon you [sic]. (male, university, non-smoker).

Many of our participants claimed that young women lack such recourse to an alternative excuse not to smoke which is respected by peers. Smoking and the situationally variable management of social identity A cigarette may be used by many young people to manage their social identities according to the demands of the situation in which they nd themselves. For instance, in the present study, a female smoking university undergraduate claimed that she feels uncomfortable in a male-dominated environment such as a pub, and that on such occasions she will smoke a cigarette in order not to look as if she has been stood up on a date. Many other female participants reported similar experiences, though this way of managing ones ongoing identity was not restricted to young women. Both young men and young women claimed that even while waiting for a train or standing around in the street alone, they will invariably seek to control other peoples attention by either smoking or doing something else. For instance, non-smokers from both schools and universities claimed that they would play with their mobile phones for the same reasons as those detailed above:
JAMES: People use mobile phones as soon as you get introduced to someone; youre waiting around, and you grab your mobile if theres a pause you grab the mobile: you know, if youre

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waiting for a train and you dont smoke, so many people grab their phone. Its just something to do isnt it? Its like a tool. INTERVIEWER: Why do people need a tool? MIKE: Boredom I guess. You need something to do. Its like theres a vacuum all of a sudden that needs to be lled. JAMES: When you say psychologically goes out for a cigarette I know a lot of people if their phone is in their pocket and theres a pause they grab for their phone. You know its almost like a craving for something. If it was maybe say fty years ago it might have been the Times Crossword if you were stood at a train platform. INTERVIEWER: Do you feel yourself doing anything? RICHARD: Me, yeah, I cant stand it when I have free time and dont do anything so like you say I just doing something with my mobile phone to pass some time. If I have my laptop I will use my laptop. I think my friend in my accommodation I ask him, Why do you smoke? he say, Cos I dont know what shall I do? He just smokes. (all male, university, non-smokers)

Similarly, young men might crack [their] nger knuckles or bite [their] nails (male, university, non-smoker), while young women might bite their nails or ddle with [their] hair (female, school, non-smoker). In all cases, the intention was to convince others that he or she is preoccupied, rather than simply stood there like a saddo (female, university, non-smoker). It can be argued, therefore, that young people are generally mindful of the visual scrutiny of others during public engagement. This notion was developed further by material elicited from smokers. For instance, the issue of different brands of cigarette revealed how smokers choose a brand to match the idea they have about their social identity. The association of different brands with different types of people seems to be knowledge shared by the smoking community. For instance:
KATHERINE: : : : the cheaper the cigarette you know, all the cleaners where we work all smoke like Lambert & Butler and then kind of your ofce staff, you know, you smoke roll-ups, or like, Marlborough Lights. TONY: Yes theres those 25 packs you can get isnt there? JACKIE: Royals KATHERINE: Thats the thing though that were saying about cigarettes because my aunt was saying that she smoked B & H and we were saying, Oh theyre really not good cigarettes they used to be cool its a joke like with some family around the table and she says, what do you mean, what do you mean? and we say, Yeah you should smoke Marlborough Lights really. That was a joke but I do look at someone differently if they have a packet of cigarettes I know vaguely what the price is so you sort of like Well, you obviously want to smoke cos I think Marlborough Lights taste better, and I think people generally think that. MARTIN: Yes, I think you see people smoking like the really heavier tar cigarettes and you tend to assume that they are you know just like a chronic smoker and they need nicotine that much. (male and female university smokers)

Marlborough Lights were perceived as trendy [and] associated with students (female, university, smoker), while brands such as Benson and Hedges and Lambert and Butler

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were associated with heavy smokers [and] older people (female, school, smoker). Our participants appeared to wish to distance themselves from the idea that other people might consider them heavily dependent on smoking, and alternatively strive to manage a social identity that involves only the fashionable connotations of smoking. This notion was developed further when we considered the social identity conferred by roll-ups (cigarettes hand-rolled from tobacco). Both school pupils and university undergraduates claimed that roll-ups are linked to socially dysfunctional individuals such as tramps and prisoners (although in the case of undergraduates, it was conceded that in certain intellectual circles, roll-ups might be recoded as fashionable). Indeed, while many of our participants found roll-ups difcult to roll [and] smelly (female, school, smoker), a number would smoke them alone at home when short of money, yet rarely when out socializing:
NORMAN: It depends where I am if Im in like a Student Bar then I really dont mind smoking roll-ups, but if Im in, like, a smart bar I wouldnt want to be seen rolling-up. (male, university, smoker)

Again, it can be argued that young people are mindful of the tacit opinion of other people in such social settings, and that this involves projecting a desirable image. Image is an issue that recurred in a consideration of how the media depict smokers, particularly with regard to gender. It was generally agreed by many participants that in lms, men who smoke invariably look cool. Nevertheless, there were different attitudes expressed about women. For instance, one female university smoking undergraduate claimed women look slutty when smoking in the media, although another argued that they can appear sexy and sultry. When we explored how smokers were generally perceived in terms of gender, we found that both young men and young women think women look less good smoking than men. For instance, one of our female university smoking undergraduates claimed, I think guys look the part, but girls dont.

Smoking as a social tool As an extension of negotiating an identity in specic situations, smoking may serve as a social tool. By this we mean a device that facilitates the engagement between smokers during public events. For instance, many young people in our sample talked about the necessity of having something to do with their hands. Hands were described by many of our participants as being demonstrative (female, university, smoker), and in the company of peers, it seemed to be crucial to control them. While drinking, young people will hold their glass, yet this could only be managed for so long without becoming conspicuous. Therefore, smokers found themselves subconsciously lighting up cigarette after cigarette (female, university, smoker), while those few who smoke roll-ups in public would generally roll another cigarette as a matter of habit:
STELLA: I cant even remember rolling them, its just completely automatic. (female, university, smoker)

Non-smokers tended to perform other acts with their hands (such as those proposed in the previous section playing with their hair, ddling with mobile phones, etc.). Another similar practical reason why young people smoke was found to involve the vicissitudes of discussion among themselves and peers. For instance, smokers claimed to smoke in order to avoid awkward pauses (male, university, smoker) in

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conversation. Smokers claimed that they light up a cigarette in order to provide a legitimate reason for the break, which the non-smokers in our sample conceded are generally embarrassing. Smoking may also alleviate boredom during such discussions. All conversations, even with friends, involve inevitable longeurs or topics relevant only to a few speakers; smoking may provide a focus of interest while these periods of discussion are endured. Another important reason why the great majority of our sample claimed to smoke involves the way cigarettes seem to bond groups (male, university, smoker). Our participants had difculty articulating just what they meant by bonding:
GARETH: Yeah, yeah, I can say, I can say, I dont know, I get a feeling that although like everyones smoking and like, its almost like a strength from that, if you know what I mean. INTERVIEWER: Oh, right. GARETH: Its almost a sort of like, them and us sort of thing, if you know what I mean. INTERVIEWER: Right. Oh, so theres a kind of like GARETH: If you, if you know what I mean, like, not quite that strong, but I think it might be like increasing that sort of bond thing. (male, university, smoker)

Nevertheless, smokers were very clear on related issues, such as the fact that when they start work at a new place of employment or change schools or attend university for the rst time, being a smoker is a good way of meeting new people (female, university, smoker). It was claimed that smokers tend to gather together, and the fact that they share cigarettes allows individuals to begin chatting in a way which a lack of pretext (no cigarette) might preclude. Non-smokers also endorsed this observation and suggested how this was experienced without cigarettes:
PETER: I just always have something in my hand to distract me it could be a pen or anything like that [ : : : ]. I guess to sort of break the ice barrier I just ask about a million questions which I never remember the answer for, or I crack nervous jokes just to sort of break the ice. (male, university, non-smoker)

Additionally, smoking was regarded by our participants as an activity tied to routines which were related to both socializing and working (in an academic and an occupational context, since many high school pupils and university undergraduates have part-time jobs). Such public engagement involves drinking and talking, as well as an attempt to alleviate stress from work. Many smokers in our sample talked about an Ah! factor. This was predominantly experienced after a long break from smoking, such as during breaks at school or between lectures at university or at the end of a long day at a place of employment. A cigarette served, therefore, as a way of letting off steam (female, school, smoker), and this was frequently practiced in public venues with other people. The participants in the present study claimed that since interacting with others involves sitting together in a xed location, smoking is the most likely method by which young people manage this. Smoking and social context On the basis of observations detailed above, we can claim that young people believe that smoking is about rather more than addiction. Indeed, a considerable number of our participants claimed to be social smokers only, and that they rarely, if ever, smoke outside of situations which involve peers smoking. Such individuals were therefore

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somewhat perplexed by why they smoke at all, though many appreciated that the context in which they smoke must act as a signicant factor. Our sample provided some pertinent material with regard to this issue, since we drew from both high school pupil and university undergraduate pools. The high schools were selected on the basis of economic status: two were of a lower socio-economic status and two of an upper status. We learned that in the lower status high schools, young people claimed that there was an expectation among pupils to smoke and that it is difcult to avoid either becoming a smoker or being encouraged to be one:
INTERVIEWER: Are you saying its down to environment is it in different environments, in a different school maybe or a different neighbourhood. Would that make it different? MATT: Most probably yes because we most of us smoke and most of us have been to the same schools and weve all turned out pretty much the same so Im sure people from say [mentions high economic school] are totally different to [sic] us. JIM: Weve basically done just about everything each other has done in their past. (male, school, smokers)

The higher status schools resembled universities in the sense that there was an antismoking ethos, and that as one male university smoking undergraduate phrased it the expectation among people is not to smoke. According to young people, therefore, the role of social context cannot be divorced from issues of personal choice. As we have seen above, young smokers seem to represent their habit as a choice they have made, while arguably underestimating the impact of the broader social mores in which they smoke. As a consequence, smokers in institutions who possess a decidedly anti-smoking ethos seek to justify their smoking habit by conguring it as a social tool and as an essential element in their everyday negotiation of identity. We are not claiming that this is all these accounts mean. Indeed, on the basis of a phenomenological orientation, we take seriously individuals reections on their everyday life, and believe that all talk has real-world referents. However, we concede that in all such accounts, there is an element of constructing a justiable identity within an anti-smoking social climate (as we shall argue in another paper). Nevertheless, the impact of social context was acknowledged by young people when we considered the issue of a smoking ban in all public places (which, at the time of writing, has just come into force in the UK; the study was conducted prior to the ban). Indeed, this issue linked notions of context with those of the social functions of smoking. Both young smokers and non-smokers claimed that although young smokers are eager to gather outside during breaks at workplaces or between daily academic sessions (classes at school/lectures at university), young smokers would be reluctant to leave a social event (involving drinking alcohol and chatting with peers):
JENNY: : : : if its just the one person in a group and theyre going outside by themselves while everybody else is having a good time inside and they come back and theyve missed everything. Its like at work [ : : : ] people go outside but theyre not in sort of an enjoyable environment are they? (female, university, smoker)

In other words, according to young people, the advantages conferred by smoking outside at work or at school/university (meeting new people, establishing friendships, etc.) may in fact be part of the appeal of social events conducted inside a public venue.

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There seems therefore to be a paradox for young people with regard to smoking during social events. Although our participants claimed that cigarettes facilitate public engagement, they nevertheless seem to prioritize this engagement above smoking. Indeed, young people in the present study claimed that a smoking ban in public places would be a good thing, while one smoker went so far as to say that in order to quit ! smoking, he would seriously consider moving to another city where smoking was passe

Stopping smoking: Social factors Everybody knows that stopping smoking is difcult. Some people, including a number of our participants, claim that will power is essential (many of our non-smokers were particularly vehement in this claim). However, a consideration of the social dimensions involved in smoking revealed that young smokers believe stopping smoking involves signicant social components, to such a degree that will power is generally not even mentioned by them. One of the major aspects of social life that our young participants identied as being an obstacle to stopping smoking was the fact that so much of everyday life is conducted with peers. One of our female smoking school pupils claimed that its hard not smoking when others are smoking around you. Indeed, in order to eliminate this obstacle, it was thought to be necessary to chain yourself to the house (female, school, smoker). High school pupils seem to be particularly vulnerable to peer-inuenced smoking recidivism while trying to stop. For instance, several of our participants, both young men and women, claimed that peers would tease them to start again. Additionally, the practice of smoking in twos (i.e. sharing a cigarette with a peer in order to save money) only exacerbates the difculty of stopping among high school smokers, since this social routine, to some degree, dictates their smoking patterns: if one is smoking, so will the other. Young smokers at university tended to cite stress as their principal reason for nding it difcult to stop smoking. With essay deadlines and nancial commitments (which invariably require some form of part-time employment in addition to their studies) they claimed that a cigarette is essential to relieve the natural anxieties of sustained concentration and hard work (this relates to the Ah! factor we discussed above). Nevertheless, non-smokers provided a number of alternatives that serve as their method of alleviating stress, among them chilling out by listening to music (male, university, non-smoker), and engaging in hobbies such as DJ-ing, eating, talking to friends, playing on a computer, and exercising. Other social factors involved in stopping smoking include the following. It was generally acknowledged by both school pupils and university undergraduates that being preoccupied with some other task is a good way of resisting smoking. Indeed, when engaged in a stimulating event (for instance, young people mentioned a watching a good lm, playing sport, etc.), the craving for a cigarette may not even arise:
DAVE: I mean, Ive asked smokers what they feel when they have a fag, and its similar to when, like I say, when Im DJ-ing or something, playing and scoring a goal its the same sort of feeling that you nd. INTERVIEWER: So are we saying that we all need some kind of buzz? CRAIG: I think so. Also, with exercise, youve also got the physical thing of, erm, like if youre running and stuff, if youve just been running, you dont want a cigarette, you just dont want it, like when I started training, I didnt, my drinking seriously cut down, not because I deliberately,

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776 Gary Fry et al. consciously tried to cut it down, just because if you dont feel like a drink, youre not going to have a drink, are you? (males, university, non-smokers)

Therefore, being preoccupied with some task means deriving a buzz (male, university, smoker) from the activity in question. For instance, many of our smokers who played sport claimed that after exercising for a while, the last thing [they] want is a cigarette (female, university, smoker). This was claimed to be a result of the buzz generated by exercise eliminating the craving normally engendered by a lack of nicotine. A number of both male and female smokers in our sample suggested that this was the case, though several female university undergraduates claimed that the rst thing they do after leaving a gym is light up a cigarette. Finally, school pupils claimed that stopping smoking is difcult because there was nothing to do in their recreational time:
JONATHAN: If they gave us something to do, we wouldnt so bored all the time. Theres nowhere to go to do anything. So we just end up smoking. (male, school, smoker)

They claimed that if they had somewhere to go say, to play football, or if they had enough money to visit such places as the cinema regularly they would not smoke as much as they do. In short, they felt that the government [was] letting them down (male, school, smoker), and that smoking was, as we stated at the beginning of this analysis, an attempt to alleviate the boredom of their everyday lives.

Discussion
The foregoing themes provide a complex account of how young people make sense of the social role cigarettes play in their everyday lives. It is clear that they do not consider smoking to be as straightforward as a biological addiction. They recognize that the habit has profound social dimensions which contribute to the persistence of smoking at least as much as a craving for nicotine does. Our participants have provided an understanding of smoking involving many factors. This frequently proved surprising to both themselves and the researchers. Indeed, the participants enjoyed taking part in these interviews, claiming that they had never realized how complex their relationship with smoking was. With these encouraging comments in mind, we have adapted our ndings in a way which we hope will be of benet to young people in relation to smoking. Implications for social psychological theory We believe that many of our ndings on smoking in young people enrich and supplement work in this eld. We will now show how our ndings t in with existing psychological approaches. Research drawing upon SIT argues that young people start smoking and continue to smoke to develop desired social identities among signicant peer groups (Stewart-Knox et al., 2005). Our own ndings endorse this observation in the sense that young people believed the decision to start smoking was a choice they made within the context of specic social groups. According to our participants, many young women seem particularly vulnerable to the inuence of same-sex peers, though young men may also experience social identity as being subject to the pressure others can exert by summoning such notions as being cool and macho.

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The difference in smoking patterns between young men and women has been noted by several existing studies. Research drawing upon the TPB has shown that young women are more mindful of their social image than young men, and that smoking plays a large part in this quest for a desirable identity (Grogan, Conner, Fry, Gough, & Higgins, in press). Gender differences in smoking: a longitudinal study of beliefs predicting smoking in 11- to 15-year olds (Psychology and Health). Our ndings support the indepth qualitative work of Plumridge et al. (2002), who argue that young females lack sufcient opportunities to develop a desired identity which does not involve smoking. For example, in sport, young men appear to have an alternative source of coolness, while young women seem might be reluctant to develop their bodies in this way. Another nding from the present study has not been considered in existing literature: the use of excuses. Young women in our sample claimed to lack legitimate reasons for saying no when offered cigarettes, whereas young men were able to draw upon alternative sources of desired social identities, such as taking sport seriously. (This nding should be treated with caution, however, since a number of our female university undergraduates suggested that sport was something they were able to claim as a good reason not to smoke.) We have also shown that the social identity of young people may be negotiated according to the demands of any situation. Both young men and women at high schools and universities believed that smoking allows them to present themselves to others in a desirable way. In contrast to observations derived from SIT, we argue that cigarettes serve as more than a visible indication of a desired identity; they can also be used when a smoker is alone. Additionally, non-smokers seek alternative methods of controlling onlookers perceptions. Therefore, the act of smoking cannot be wholly reduced to an aspect of group afliation, as SIT might suggest. We have also shown that smoking might be used more generally as a social tool by young people. Cigarettes were used by smokers in our sample at both high schools and university as a way of facilitating the engagement between themselves and others, particularly when meeting people for the rst time. This practical dimension to smoking also enriches the peer group proposition of SIT, showing how cigarettes can function not only as a marker of collective identity, but also as a device employed to render social interactions more manageable. We have also shown how the context in which young people smoke can be a powerful inuence on smoking behaviours. In contrast, typical applications of the TPB to smoking tend to focus on smoking in general and not on how smoking varies across situations or contexts (Conner et al., 2006). Many of our participants rarely, if ever, smoked outside of an environment involving other people smoking. Therefore, trying to understand smoking while ignoring the context can never fully capture this situationspecic behaviour. Finally, our study has revealed that the difculties experienced by young people in stopping smoking may involve social factors to a signicant degree. The smokers in our study claimed that the reason they cannot stop smoking was due to the fact that everyday life renders this difcult: there is too much stress involved; smoking becomes part of an everyday routine which is hard to escape; there are few stimulating alternatives to smoking; and there is invariably the presence of other young smokers who may tease them to start again. In conclusion, theories which reduce the decision to smoke to intra-psychic or social factors tend to overlook these other social dimensions involving the ux of everyday life. Additionally, studies which have focused on some of these social factors have frequently

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778 Gary Fry et al.

done so to the exclusion of other signicant elements. We hope that our phenomenologically oriented investigation has gone some way towards drawing these latter elements together. We also hope that future studies might build upon some of these insights in order to determine whether they are generalizable from the relatively small sample involved in this study. Future work could also investigate whether these ndings generalize to non-British participants.

Implications for intervention On the basis of the foregoing analysis, we believe it is possible to make a number of recommendations to help young people either to avoid starting or to stop smoking. One way young people of both genders might combat pressure from smoking peers is by seeking out an alternative source of coolness. In the case of young men, this might involve taking an interest in sport, just as it might in the case of young women. However, we appreciate that not everyone is inclined to be sporty, and that young women especially possess fewer opportunities to develop such social identities. Nevertheless, an awareness of these mores might allow young people to think about the way they might justify choosing not to smoke. We have shown that excuses used by young people when offered cigarettes vary in terms of their legitimacy. Young people might benet from a consideration of how they should marshal their excuses in a way which is regarded by peers as an acceptable reason not to smoke. Young people might also benet from an awareness of the degree to which the choice to start smoking is governed by their desired image. We have revealed that even non-smokers experienced negative scrutiny from other people in social settings, and that reaching for a cigarette is not the only method by which this gaze of others might be placated. Such simple strategies as playing with a mobile phone can serve the same function as lighting up a cigarette: in both cases, there is an attempt to communicate a message to onlookers, one involving being preoccupied and not a loner. For young smokers wishing to stop, an awareness of the fact that even minor issues such as the brand of cigarette they choose is involved in this process of establishing a suitable image might facilitate their resistance. A focus on the function of cigarettes as a social tool might also illuminate the role smoking plays in everyday life. Smokers might be encouraged to become reexively aware of the fact that they often subconsciously light up cigarette after cigarette during public engagement, and that alternatives are available, such as cracking jokes or perhaps learning to tolerate the silences during junctures in discussions. Additionally, alternative methods of establishing a bond with ones peer group might be addressed; shared interests music, books, etc. could be focused on as an explicit way of establishing bonds which do not involve the tacit sense of togetherness engendered by cigarettes. Finally, alternative methods of stress relief might be promoted, such as listening to music or engaging in a hobby or simply eating. A greater awareness of the social context in which smoking is practiced that is, in organizations with either a pro- or anti-smoking ethos might furnish individuals with a repertoire with which to resist smoking or to help them stop. Indeed, encouraging young people to reect upon the impact of the recent smoking ban in public venues, particularly with regard to the paradox we noted earlier concerning smoking inside and outside, might convince young people that smoking is less a choice they are making than a decision governed by their social locations and their attendant rules.

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Finally, we recommend that young people should be made fully aware of the fact that smoking is not merely a biological craving, but is rather powerfully motivated by social factors such as peer groups, everyday routines, and a lack of anything more stimulating to do. The present study has shown that young people already have a tacit awareness of this issue, but encouraging them to reect in more detail about the context of their smoking may help them either to resist or to stop smoking. We appreciate of course that young people have limited funds and opportunities, but we are convinced that putting young people in reexive control of their relationship with smoking will have a signicant impact on their capacity to alter their decision to smoke, not to smoke, or to stop once they have started. The ndings reported above will, we argue, be a step forward in offering young people agency with regard to cigarettes: then and only then do we feel that the decision to start smoking or to resist the habit or to stop once they have started, will be a choice they are making.

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