Moody teenagers light up

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Psychologists Dr Barbara Lloyd and Dr Kevin Lucas are the authors of the year's 'outstanding paper' in the journal Health Education. Their article on cigarette smoking among young people has won the pair a Literati Club Award for Excellence 2000.

"Adults use food, alcohol and drugs (including cigarettes), to control and change their moods," says Barbara, a Senior Research Fellow in SOC. "So it's hardly surprising that adolescents do too."

Barbara and Kevin, a Visiting Research Fellow in Health and Social Psychology, conducted a study of over 3,500 secondary school pupils in East Sussex. They analysed both questionnaire and qualitative data from the pupils and related their findings to previously published studies about the links between smoking and how people cope with stress.

Barbara says the results raise the possibility that smokers perceive more stress in their lives than non-smokers and use different coping strategies. "They make less use of what we call 'problem-focused coping strategies', such as talking to people or looking in books for information, and more use of 'cathartic coping strategies', like slamming doors or taking part in active sport."

The psychologists' paper also explores the popular belief that teenage girls experience greater stress than do teenage boys. Their research indicates that differences between the number of girls and boys who smoke are not a direct result of differences either in perceived stress or in their coping strategies.

Finally, Barbara and Kevin challenge the widely held view that teenage girls use cigarettes to control body weight. They found no relationship between whether people in this age group (11-16) were smokers and whether they were concerned about their body image.

David Russon, Deputy Chief Executive of the British Library, presents the Literati Award for Excellence to Barbara Lloyd and Kevin Lucas.