Smoking prevention programs, as well as research into new antismoking strategies in the schools, should focus on dirts and hotshots, assert Mosbach and Leventhal.
Dirts and hotshots made up 15 percent of the sample but accounted for 56 percent of the smokers, report Mosbach and Leventhal in the May JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY. Smoking is one of several behaviors that attract dirts to one another and helps satisfy a need for risk-taking and excitement, say the researchers. Dirts
usually begin smoking before junior high, and are relatively self-confident and unconcerned about smoking’s health dangers. Hotshots, on the other hand, are mainly females who seek excitement and achievement but are uncertain of their acceptance by others. Social pressures at school are likely to generate smoking among hotshots, who nevertheless believe that smoking is harmful.
