Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

1275

Date

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Psychology

Concentration

General Psychology

Committee Chair

Leslie A. Robinson

Committee Member

James G. Murphy

Committee Member

George E. Relyea

Abstract

Study validity often depends on accurate self-reports of participant smoking. However, a dearth of empirical literature exists addressing how individuals define ‘being a smoker.’ The purpose of this study was to explore predictors of how young adults define smoking, including ethnicity, gender, and amount smoked. A measure of what constitutes “smoking” was created, ranging from very restrictive definitions of smoking to not at all restrictive definitions. A 3-way factorial ANOVA revealed an interaction effect between ethnicity and smoking level. Pairwise comparisons yielded significant differences between Caucasian light and intermittent smokers (LITS) and Caucasian heavy smokers. Caucasian LITS were more likely to have a restrictive definition of smoking as compared to Caucasian heavy smokers, F (1, 372) = 10.89, p = .001; however, there were no differences found between African American LITS and African American heavy smokers. The main effect of smoking level was also significant, F (1, 372) = 5.79, p = .017, with heavy smokers being more unrestrictive in their definition of smoking as compared to LITS. Together, these findings suggest that asking about participant smoking status is not a sufficient measurement strategy, because different types of young adults will respond differently.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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