The role of attitudes and social norms in adolescent cigarette smoking.

: Measures of attitude and social norm (pressure) were gathered from 279 young people aged 14-16 attending one North Island high school. These data were analysed according to Fishbein's model of behavioural intention to determine the relative importance of attitudes and social pressures in young people's intentions to smoke cigarettes. New Zealand data are compared from a comparable group of US adolescents. Results clearly indicate that social pressures were much more important in determining intention to smoke cigarettes among the New Zealand sample than among the US sample. Among the New Zealand sample, there was less difference between the attitudes towards cigarette smoking of those who intend to smoke and those who do not than there was among the US sample. These New Zealand data are interpreted in terms of developing educational programmes to reduce adolescent cigarette smoking.