The role of depression symptoms on social information processing and tobacco use among adolescents

UnrestrictedThe current studies provide evidence of the psychosocial processes involved in generating risk for smoking behaviors among those who exhibit high levels of depression symptoms. Study 1 examined the relationship between depressive symptoms, smoking social influences, and smoking behaviors among a sample of adolescents. Study 1 results supported the hypothesis that the relationship between depression symptoms and smoking behaviors were at least partially mediated by both pro-smoking social norm beliefs and perceived friend smoking prevalence. There was no evidence that depression symptoms moderated the relationship between social influences and smoking. Study 2 examined whether changes in social influence cognitions (via a social influences based smoking prevention program) would affect smoking behaviors of students with high levels of depression symptoms more so than those with low or no symptoms. Study 2 results provided evidence that the smoking prevention program changed perceptions of friend smoking prevalence rates among adolescents who had high scores of depression and who have previously experimented with smoking. It was this change in perception that was responsible for the observed reduction in 30-day smoking one year after program implementation. While perceptions of the social environment might differ due to underlying cognitive processes between depressed adolescents and non-depressed adolescents, an important question to ask is whether social competencies may be a better predictor of social influence factors related to risk behaviors like smoking. Study 3 explored the relationships between depression symptoms, social competence (sociability and/or deficits), and smoking-related psychosocial perceptions. Results of study 3 were consistent with the findings of studies 1 and 2 in that depression symptoms were associated with higher perceived friend prevalence.; In addition, study 3 found social competence and depression to have complex relationships with psychosocial risk factors for smoking. Sociability was associated with lower pro-smoking social norm beliefs but only when depression is controlled for in the models. Social deficits modified the relationship between depression and perceptions of social norms. The interaction suggested that depression was negatively associated with pro-smoking norm perceptions only among those with social deficits. Collectively, all three studies suggest that perceptions of adolescent social environments are important determinants in smoking behaviors and interventions which target changing perceptions of adolescent social environments would benefit from understanding how dispositional phenotypes, such as risk for depression and social competence, would modify program effects