Study: 'Novelty-seekers' more likely to smoke

According to new research, "Just Say No" isn't cutting it anymore.

Janet Audrain-McGovern, professor of psychology in psychiatry, has recently led the discovery that teens who enjoy taking risks are more receptive to tobacco advertising, which in turn makes them more likely to take up smoking.

According to Audrain-McGovern, tobacco companies already advertise to these "novelty-seeking" teens, and anti-smoking campaigns should follow suit.

"Tobacco advertising highlights stimulating activities and adventurous behavior," Audrain-McGovern said.

"Those types of messages -- high-impact, fast-paced, emotionally laden-action -- really get to someone who's novelty-seeking."

She and her research team interviewed a group of 1,071 high school students five times from ages 14 to 18.

These students filled out questionnaires asking whether or not they had ever smoked a cigarette. The questionnaire also tested their receptiveness to tobacco advertising by asking whether or not they had a favorite commercial, and also measured the likelihood that they would take behavioral risks.

Audrain-McGovern found that adolescents with novelty-seeking traits were twice as likely to be "at least moderately receptive" to tobacco advertising.

She also found that adolescents who were receptive to tobacco advertising were over twice as likely to have ever smoked.

But you can't just multiply the numbers, she stressed. The research does not necessarily mean that novelty-seeking teens are four times as likely to smoke, as there are also other factors involved in the decision-making process.

Audrain-McGovern was inspired to study the possible correlation between risk-taking behavior and receptivity to tobacco advertising through her prior work with psychology, she said.

She had previously found evidence that receptivity to tobacco advertising varies by individual.

"Males are more likely than females to possess promotional items. Whites are more likely to possess promotional items," Audrain-McGovern said.

"These individual differences gave me the idea that there might be personality trait differences" in how easily swayed someone is by tobacco advertising, she added.

Audrain-McGovern said her informs anti-tobacco campaigns about who their audience is.

"This could be used to inform anti-tobacco campaigns," she said. "They have to design their ads so that the audience that is at risk can best hear them."

According to Audrain-McGovern, anti-tobacco ads need to be fast-paced and dramatic in order to reach their intended audience.

As her subjects are moving into the college years, so is Audrain-McGovern's research. She is starting a new project focusing on college smokers.

She said that between 1993 and 1997, the percentage of college students who smoke has increased by 30 percent.

However, there has not been a similar increase in the amount of research done on college smokers.

"Historically, this hasn't been a population that smoked a lot," Audrain-McGovern said.

"There has been a dramatic increase in college smoking over the past few years, and we know very little about how to help college smokers quit."

Nursing sophomore Alidane Punzalan said that the results of the research seemed logical to her. She is not a smoker, and said that she would not describe herself as a risk-taker.

However, she added that she has a friend who says, "I want to do everything" and "pierces everything," and that she is a smoker.

Audrain-McGovern noted the reluctance of college smokers to go to university health centers for help.

Her new research will involve giving free individualized smoking cessation treatments to college students who smoke, and then tracking them over several months to note their progress.

Audrain-McGovern is leading several projects at the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center. The center is dedicated to studying the social, psychological and genetic variables that lead to tobacco use and nicotine addiction.

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