Cigarette use by adolescents: Attitude-behavior relationships

Structural equation models were used to test the effectiveness of various t heories in predicting cigarette smoking among adolescents. Maximum-likeliho od estimation, as implemented in LISREL for Windows 8.12, was used to compa re the theory of reasoned action (TRA), the theory of planned behavior, and a modified version of the theory of reasoned action incorporating past beh avior. Respondents consisted of 225 high school students who were questione d in 1994 about their attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral con trol, past behavior, intentions, and actual behavior relating to the use of cigarettes. Results indicated that the modification of the TRA incorporati ng past behavior provided a marginally better fit than the other models. Fo r this group of high school students, attitudes toward smoking, past behavi or in relation to smoking, and perceptions of what significant others think they should do were significant predictors of their intentions to smoke. I ntentions, together with past behavior, predicted their actual behavior. Th e models used in the present research show that this behavior can be explai ned with reference to a small number of key variables which are useful for furthering our understanding of the structure of adolescents smoking.