Furthermore, 22% of the students were observed smoking alone as compared to previous studies (through interviews) that showed 12% smoked alone. Sussman et al, also speculated that the oldest among the youth who were smoking alone may have had cravings even when they were not in a group setting. This illustrates that social influence to smoke in a crowd among fellow, respected peers may not be the only reason for smoking. Also, solitary smokers may be smoking for personal reasons, such as stress relief or boredom. To this point, social influences based on family and friends have been discussed. However, social influence in one last area needs to be investigated - the media. Cigarette ads are seen by most on a daily basis in magazines, on billboards, sports sponsorships, and on television (indirectly), to name a few. Researchers have found that ads that depict attractive, sexy models who are engaged in exciting and cool activities may suggest to impressionable youths an association between the desirable traits of the cigarette models and people who smoke. This concept can also be used with icons, such as Old Joe Camel.Pechmann and Ratneshwar (1994) examined the effects of three different advertisements - control ads (unrelated ads to smoking), anti smoking ads, and cigarette ads, in that order. The unrelated, control ads were used to examine the subjects’ prior judgements of a smoker. All of the ads were rated based on the traits in the following order: smart, intelligent, healthy, grown-up, mature, good-looking, attractive, exciting, adventurous, popular, has friends, and cool. They were then asked whether they might personally like the person depicted in the ad. The responses were rated on a scale from one (definitely not) to seven (definitely yes). The subjects rated smokers and nonsmokers the same, except when it came to common sense and like-ability, which were rated as relat...
