Smoking initiation: Peers and personality

Social interactions are widely recognized to play an important role in smoking initiation among adolescents. In this paper, we hypothesize that emotionally stable, conscientious individuals are better able to resist peer pressure in the uptake of smoking. We exploit detailed friendship nominations i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inQuantitative economics Vol. 9; no. 2; pp. 825 - 863
Main Authors Hsieh, Chih-sheng, Van Kippersluis, Hans
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New Haven, CT The Econometric Society 01.07.2018
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Subjects
Bayesian MCMC
C11
C21
Contextual effects
Econometrics
Endogenous
Health aspects
Health information
Health status
I12
Nominations
peer effects
Peer pressure
Peer relationships
Personality
SAR model
Smoking
Smoking and youth
Social interaction
Social networks
Uptake
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Summary:Social interactions are widely recognized to play an important role in smoking initiation among adolescents. In this paper, we hypothesize that emotionally stable, conscientious individuals are better able to resist peer pressure in the uptake of smoking. We exploit detailed friendship nominations in the US Add Health data, and extend the Spatial Autoregressive (SAR) model to deal with (i) endogenous peer selection, and (ii) unobserved contextual effects, in order to identify heterogeneity in peer effects with respect to personality. The results indicate that peer effects in the uptake of smoking are predominantly affecting individuals who are emotionally unstable. That is, emotionally unstable individuals are more vulnerable to peer pressure. This finding not only helps understanding heterogeneity in peer effects, but additionally provides a promising mechanism through which personality affects later life health and socioeconomic outcomes.
Bibliography:Supplementary Material
ISSN:1759-7331
1759-7323
1759-7331
DOI:10.3982/QE615