ABSTRACT
This chapter considers cigarette smoking in terms of the social identities which adolescents adopt by choosing either to be a nonsmoker or a smoker. It examines the concept of adolescent identity by reviewing its history within the social sciences and also considers its usefulness in understanding adolescent smoking behaviour. The chapter reviews quantitative questionnaire results measuring six aspects of adolescent social identities and explores the social identities using qualitative approaches. It describes a different approach to identities, and compares the results of an American study that linked gender identities to smoking with findings from the Sussex questionnaire study. The social-psychological approach maintains an awareness of individuals as constituted in terms of the groups of which they are members. The smoking status of adolescents will moderate these evaluations so that smokers provide more favourable evaluations of adolescents who smoke. Data from the autumn term questionnaire were used to assess adolescent self-perceptions.
