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Health Education Research, Vol. 10, No. 1, 95-106, 1995
© 1995 Oxford University Press

research-article

Adolescent smoking—an alternative perspective using personal construct theory

Peter Lynch

Faculty of Education and Community Studies, University of Reading, Reading RG6 2AH and Health Promotion and Education Centre West Berkshire Priority Care Trust, Reading RG3 4EJ, UK

This paper reports on the results of a pilot study, applying George Kelly's repertory grid technique for eliciting personal constructs about smoking with a group of 16–17 year old students. The technique uses pictures of smoking situations as the elements in interviews with both smokers and non-smokers. The results were then analysed using the Focus and Sociogrid computer programmes. The findings suggest that the failure of recent anti-smoking programmes, aimed at young people, may have been inevitable. Prevailing assumptions that young people are driven predominantly by extrinsic factors may be the basis of this failure. Smoking needs to be viewed in a more holistic framework of adolescent development and not as an isolated behaviour. Individuality, rather than social and image constructs, appear to be of far greater significance to young smokers than the literature would suggest. There is a need to broaden traditional approaches to smoking prevention and take account of intrinsic psychological causes of smoking rather than just the social symptoms.


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