A Longitudinal Test of Social Learning Theory: Adolescent Smoking

A general social learning theory of deviance is applied to adolescent smoking as a form of sustance use and tested with data from a 5-year longitudinal study of a panel (N=454) of respondents in grades 7 through 12 in an Iowa community. The major components of the process specified in the theory are differential association, differential reinforcement, definitions (attitudes), and modeling. The process is one in which the operation of these variables produces abstinence or smoking, but with some reciprocal effects of smoking behavior on the social learning variables. Previous research on various kinds of deviance and substance use has been supportive of the theory. The findings in this study from LISREL models of the overall social learning process and each of the component of association, reinforcement, and definitions are also supportive.