that persons who agree to social norms feel it appropriate to abide by them. Thus, they are less likely to engage in deviant behavior. They all have been found to have either a negative or positive influential effect (DeFronzo and Pawlak, 1993). To illustrate, several studies have identified social controls whose absence has caused adolescents to experiment and initiate in tobacco use. Starting at home, the influence of parental attitude and behavior toward adolescent smoking has a major impact on adolescent smoking. Newman and Ward (1989) sampled 735 students from 12 schools in and around one moderately sized Midwestern city, 18.5% of the sample were smokers. In this study, Newman & Ward asked the students questions via a questionnaire in order to rate the parental attitudes. One question asked was, “With regards to my smoking cigarettes, my parents/guardian would: threaten to punish me if I smoked; haven’t told me how they feel if I smoke? ; have told me they don’t care if I smoke” (Newman and Ward, 1989, p. 150). Two-thirds of the students reported that both parents would be upset if they smoked. An interesting note was that about two-thirds of the nonsmoking adolescents reported parental disapproval versus one-half of the smoking adolescents. The analysis of the data revealed that when neither parent smoked and both disapproved of it, about 10 percent of their adolescents smoked. When the attitude toward smoking was held constant, but both parents were smokers, the percentage of adolescent smoking almost doubled. When neither parent smoked and had indifferent attitudes toward adolescent smoking, almost 20 percent of their adolescents smoked. Again, when the attitudes were held constant and both parents smoked, approximately 30 percent of their adolescents smoked. These results suggest two important points according to Newman and Ward (1989). First, parental attitude, when expressed, appears to...
