Challenges to the peer influence paradigm: results for 12-13 year olds from six European countries from the European Smoking Prevention Framework Approach study

Objective

To examine whether smoking onset in young adolescents is predicted by peer or parental smoking.

Design

Longitudinal design with one pretest and one follow‐up at 12 months.

Setting

Schools in Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal.

Participants

7102 randomly selected adolescents from six countries. Mean age was 12.78 years.

Main outcome measures

Smoking behaviour of adolescents, peers and parents.

Results

No support was found for peer smoking as an important predictor of smoking onset in most countries. Support was found for the selection paradigm, implying that adolescents choose friends with similar smoking behaviour. Support for the impact of parents on adolescent behaviour and the choice of friends was also found.

Conclusions

Smoking uptake in this age cohort may be more strongly influenced by personal and parental influences than initially believed. Hence, social inoculation programmes teaching youngsters to resist the pressures to smoke may be less appropriate if youngsters have a positive attitude towards smoking, associate smoking with various advantages and look for peers with similar values. For this group attitudes towards smoking may thus guide future friend selection.