Parental Involvement, Parenting Style and Peer Pressure as Determinants of Adolescents’ Attitude Towards Cigarette Smoking
Cigarette smoking is an international public health problem that has been called the most preventable cause of death. There is therefore a need have a good understanding of why young people smoke and what factors play a significant role in their decisions to start smoking. This study examined the influence of parental involvement, peer pressure and parenting style on attitude towards cigarette smoking among in-school adolescents in Ibadan. This study adopted a cross-sectional survey design to accidentally sample 240 students from four randomly selected public secondary schools in Ibadan North Local Government using a questionnaire comprising validated scales measuring peer pressure, parenting style, parental involvement and cigarette smoking attitude. Respondents’ age was 15.54±2.41 years. Five hypotheses were formulated and tested at.05 level of significance. It was found that adolescents who have parents that are highly involved in their extra-curricular activities are more likely to develop a positive disposition towards the act of cigarette smoking (t(211)=2.176;p<.05); in-school adolescents who reported high peer pressure exhibited more positive attitudes towards cigarette smoking than adolescents who reported low peer pressure (t(200)=8.782;p<.01). Parenting styles had no significant influence on attitude towards cigarette smoking of in-school adolescents (F(2,212)=.783;p>.05). Parental involvement and parenting style interacted significantly to influence attitude towards cigarette smoking (F(2,199)=3.138;p<.05), such that in-school adolescents with highly involved and permissive parents had the most positive disposition to smoking while those with less involved and permissive parents had the most negative disposition to smoking. Gender did not differentiate attitude to smoking (t(213)=.969;P>.05). High involvement in an adolescent’s life, permissive parenting and peer pressure are central to adolescents’ formation of positive smoking attitudes. The study recommended that parents manage their involvement in their adolescents’ life to reduce the adolescent’s tendency to engage in reactance by desiring anti-social behaviours such as cigarette smoking.