Pubertal Development, Choice of Friends, and Smoking Initiation among Adolescent Males

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Pubertal Development, Choice of Friends, and
Smoking Initiation among Adolescent Males

• Laurie A. Drapela
• WSU PS/CJ Research Symposium Series
• Friday, November 5th

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Smoking among youth

• Problematic for several reasons
• Tends to be one of the first substances youth
  experiment with
• Associated with negative health outcomes (adult
  smoking, use of other drugs)
• behavioral outcomes (delinquency, precocious
  sexual behavior)
• Researchers have primarily considered the effects
  of parents and peers on youth smoking
• Psychologists sexual maturity

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Considering the interrelation of peers and
pubertal development on youth deviance

• Moffitts Developmental Taxonomy
• Adolescence-limited v. life course persistent
  offenders (see figure)
• Maturity gap and mimicry
• Frustration and desire for autonomy provide
  motivation for deviance
• Smoking as an expression of autonomy

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• If Moffitt is correct, then we should see
• a positive effect of pubertal development (PD) on
  deviant peers as well as youth smoking/initiation
• Possible conditional effect of deviant peers on
  youth smoking/initiation among kids who
  experience early PD

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Data, Measures, Method

• Data Waves I and II of the National Longitudinal
  Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health)
• males aged 12-16 (N3958)
• W I prev. 2105/3958 W II prev. 322/1853
• Measures
• Criterion smoking prevalence (WI) smoking
  initiation (WII)
• of 3 best friends who smoke (Wvs. I II)

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• Predictor
• PD index (5 questions) amount of hair under the
  arms, thickness of facial hair, deepening of the
  voice, self-reported relative PD (R 4-19)
• W I alpha .65 W II alpha .66
• Parent smoking
• Peer smoking (see prior page)
• demographics (age, race)
• Method
• logit (smoking prevalence initiation)
• ordered logit ( of friends who smoke)

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Results

• Average male in the sample is white, 14 years
  old, has a 50 chance of having smoked at least
  once and a 30 chance of having a parent who
  smokes (Table 1).
• PD has a direct positive effect on the odds of W
  I youth smoking (T2) and an indirect effect
  through the number of peers who smoke _at_ W I (T3).
• Appears to be a lagged effect of W I peer
  selection on W II peer selection (T4, mod. 3)
• AND it appears that those boys with high levels
  of PD at younger ages are more likely to see out
  peers who smoke (T4, mod. 3)

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• But among those who took up smoking between these
  first two waves
• the influence of peer smoking is contemporaneous,
  not lagged (mods. 1-2)
• the effect of PD is also contemporaneous, not
  lagged (mods. 3-4)
• there is no conditional effect of pubertal
  development and age on smoking initiation
• rather seems to be indirect, through of peers
  who smoke at W II (T 4)

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Conclusions and Caveats

• Findings are consistent with Moffitts theory
• effects of PD on youth smoking
• effects of PD on deviant peers
• these results suggest that the timing of pubertal
  development may be a very critical factor in the
  selection of deviant peers (early PD)
• Caveats
• not measuring many of the intervening mechanisms
  of the theory
• selection versus stability of deviant friends?
• collinearity issues