Brief reportOptimistic bias in adolescent and adult smokers and nonsmokers
Section snippets
Participants and procedure
The participants were 200 adolescents aged 12–17 (89 males and 111 females) and 203 adults aged 30–50 (95 males, 108 females). Data from half of the adolescents and adults were collected in Seattle, Washington, and from the other half in Spokane, Washington. Among the adolescents, 80% were White, 5% Asian American, 5% Latino, 3% African American, and 7% other ethnic groups. Among the adults, 83% were White, 7% African American, 3% Latino, 3% Asian American, and 4% other ethnic groups.
Results
Twenty-four percent (24%) of the adolescents and 32% of the adults had smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days. There were no gender differences in smoking prevalence among adolescents, but among adults males were significantly more likely than females to have smoked in the past 30 days—40% males, 24% females; chi-square (1,201) = 5.73, p < .05. Smoking prevalence increased with age among adolescents, from 4% of 12-year-olds to 41% of 17-year-olds. There were no age differences in
Discussion
Although optimistic bias has been found to be related to smoking behavior among both adolescents and adults (Weinstein, 1998), up to now only one study (Cohn et al., 1995) had included both adolescents and adults. The results of the present study confirmed the finding of Cohn et al. (1995) that the optimistic bias in relation to smoking is stronger for adolescents than for adults. Furthermore, unlike Cohn et al., the present study also compared the optimistic bias among smokers and nonsmokers.
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