, 2003, 2009; Sargent et al., 2002, 2005; see also DiFranza et al., 2006; National Cancer Institute [NCI], 2008; Wellman, Sugarman, DiFranza, & Winkoff, 2006). An emerging literature has begun to shed light on psychosocial mechanisms (e.g., positive expectancies) selleck chemicals Nilotinib that mediate these exposure effects (Sargent et al., 2002; Wills, Sargent, Stoolmiller, Gibbons, & Gerrard, 2008; Wills et al., 2007). In addition to understanding meditational mechanisms, it is important to understand whether character motives for smoking influence the impact of these portrayals. For example, movie smoking that is portrayed as having a motive (e.g., as a way to relax, to facilitate socializing, or to appear rebellious; Dalton et al., 2002; Worth, Duke, Green, & Sargent, 2007) may affect adolescents differently than that portrayed as having no motive.

These portrayals may then foster vicarious learning of associations between smoking and positive outcomes (e.g., relaxation) which in turn could prompt adolescent smoking (see Johnson et al., 2003; Piko, Wills, & Walker, 2007; Wills, Sandy, & Shinar, 1999; see also Bandura, 2006). However, research has yet to examine associations between exposure to different motives for movie smoking and adolescent smoking. This preliminary laboratory study examined whether exposure to movie smoking that is portrayed as having a clear motive (i.e., as helping characters to socialize, to relax, or to appear rebellious) has a different association with desire to smoke compared with smoking that is portrayed as having no clear motive.

We had no specific hypotheses about which motive would be more strongly associated with desire to smoke in this exploratory study. Methods Participants This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at RAND. A total of 77 never-smoking adolescents, recruited using media advertising, participated (62% male; 60% Caucasian; 14% Black; and 25% multiethnic). Their mean age was 12.8 years (SD = 1.0). A majority of the sample reported that both parents worked (more than 77%). Procedures Smoking and non�Csmoking clips were selected from 28 wide-release movies (rated PG to R). The smoking scenes were initially sorted by study team consensus into four smoking motives categories (see Worth et al.

, 2007; categorizations used for the final analyses were determined by examining participant data; see Results section below): (a) characters smoking to relax, (b) characters smoking to facilitate social interaction, (c) characters smoking to appear rebellious, or (d) characters smoking where no motive was apparent. A Cilengitide total of 32 smoking scenes (8 per motive category) were selected. Next, non�Csmoking scenes were selected from the same movies where the same characters that appeared in the smoking scenes were present and where the tone of the scene was similar to that of the identified smoking clip, yielding 32 non�Csmoking clips.