g at the second year results. Two social influences, mothers smoking and friends smoking both predicted smoking one a year later. This study, contrasting with earlier studies, revealed that the father’s smoking and/or the sibling’s smoking did not influence adolescent smoking. Friends turned out to be the leading social influence in smoking initiation and experimentation. In contrast to the other studies mentioned, Botvin and Diaz concluded that adolescents spend much of their time with similar friends and that they are socially influenced by them; however, perceptions that “everyone is smoking” between peers and adults did not predict subsequent smoking.Another study supporting the role of social learning was completed by Harton and Latan (1997) who examined social influence and adolescent lifestyle attitudes during a two-year study of nine to fifteen year olds. They hypothesized that over time, the attitudes of the adolescents would change as their social influences change. Students who completed the data over the two-year study totaled 193. Students were tested in groups of two to twenty-two in the computer testing room at their school in November and March and on days that did not follow a weekend or holiday, producing a time span of five months between tests. Once the students were randomly seated, they were told that they were being tested for attitudes and friendships. The questions, intermixed with others, centered around the sociometric measures and on thirteen lifestyle attitudes (ranging from healthy to deviant activities). The attitude questions all started off with, “Do you think it is O.K. for students in your grade to . . . ?” (Harton and Lantan, 1997, p. 204). Six sociometric questions were also asked regarding whom the students talk to in class, liked in class, and respected in class.With regards to attitudes toward smoking, the results revealed that fourth grade approval h...
