Background: Peers exert influence not to smoke but little is yet known on how this affects young people's behavior and cognitions.
Objectives: This experimental study investigates the impact of two types of peer influence not to smoke on the verbalized attitudes and responses of daily-smoking young people.
Methods: Two conditions were conducted: 1) a peer confederate stating three times that s/he had quit smoking and was glad to have done so (covert peer influence); 2) a peer confederate making similar statements, but urging to quit smoking (overt peer influence). The participant performed a music task with the peer in order to disguise the true nature of the experiment. Thirty-one daily-smoking young people (16-24 years) participated; 44 responses in the overt and 34 responses in the covert condition were analyzed in a discourse analysis.
Results: The participants in the covert condition were more elaborative about smoking, i.e., taking an active role in a dialogue about the experiences of the peer or the participant in quitting smoking while in the overt condition participants showed more passive resistance, i.e., not showing an intention to follow the advice but avoid causing the peer embarrassment or discomfort. Open resistance, i.e., demonstration of being well-informed and indicating the redundancy of the advice, does not significantly differ in these two conditions but occurs, for both, primarily at the third discouragement.
Conclusions: Overt and frequent discouragement seems to be less effective in stimulating young people to take an active role in the dialogue with their peers about smoking.
Keywords: Late adolescents; covert peer influence; experiment; overt peer influence; tobacco smoking; young adults.