Smoking Intention (SI)

Abstract

The Smoking Intention (SI) scale is a widely cited, psychometrically validated tri-item self-report instrument developed by Cornelia Pechmann, Guangzhi Zhao, Marvin E. Goldberg, and Ellen Thomas Reibling (2003) to quantify an adolescent’s expressed cognitive susceptibility and behavioral intention toward initiating cigarette consumption in the unspecified or near future. Formulated within the empirical investigation of consumer psychology and health communication, the instrument assesses early-stage adolescent vulnerability to tobacco use by combining general temporal expectations of smoking initiation with context-specific social resistance scenarios. Comprising three items scored on a 7-point Likert-type continuum ranging from 1 (Definitely no / Strongly disagree) to 7 (Definitely yes / Strongly agree), the scale yields a continuous composite metric wherein higher scores signify elevated latent intention to smoke. Extensive psychometric evaluations demonstrate that the instrument possesses exceptional internal consistency reliability (with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely exceeding α = .88 to .93) and robust structural validity characterized by a strictly unidimensional latent factor structure. The scale demonstrates powerful predictive validity, forecasting prospective adolescent tobacco experimentation and smoking onset across longitudinal and experimental public health studies. Furthermore, the tool exhibits strong convergent validity with theoretical constructs derived from Protection Motivation Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and Pierce’s tobacco susceptibility paradigm. Its brevity, non-invasive design, and high psychometric sensitivity make the Smoking Intention scale a preeminent assessment tool in clinical research, adolescent health psychology, preventive medicine, and mass-media counter-marketing intervention evaluations.

Keywords

Smoking Intention, adolescent smoking, tobacco susceptibility, Protection Motivation Theory, behavioral intentions, health communication, substance use initiation, psychometrics, counter-marketing, scale validation

Authors

The Smoking Intention (SI) scale was developed and operationalized by a multidisciplinary team of scholars in marketing, behavioral economics, and public health communication:

• Cornelia (Connie) Pechmann, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. Dr. Pechmann is an internationally recognized expert in adolescent risk behaviors, tobacco control, social marketing, and the psychological impact of public service announcements on youth health decision-making.
• Guangzhi Zhao, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, University of Kansas. His research focuses on consumer behavior, advertising persuasion, message framing, and adolescent health-protective behaviors.
• Marvin E. Goldberg, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Health Policy Administration at the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Goldberg is a pioneer in analyzing the effects of commercial and social advertising on youth, particularly concerning tobacco, alcohol, and nutritional choices.
• Ellen Thomas Reibling, Ph.D. — Researcher affiliated with the University of California, Irvine, specializing in public health evaluation, adolescent communication interventions, and community-based health promotion campaigns.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Smoking Intention (SI) scale is to furnish an empirically rigorous, sensitive, and concise measurement tool capable of identifying latent tobacco use propensity among youth who have not yet established regular smoking habits. Historically, tobacco surveillance metrics categorized non-smoking individuals via simplistic, binary historical questions (e.g., “Have you ever smoked a cigarette? Yes/No”). Such dichotomous assessments fail to capture the subtle pre-behavioral cognitive continuum that precedes initial experimentation. Adolescents frequently formulate cognitive expectations, curiosity, and willingness to smoke months or years prior to smoking their first cigarette. The SI scale was engineered specifically to bridge this diagnostic gap by detecting subclinical variations in cognitive vulnerability and behavioral readiness.

Within public health communication and experimental consumer psychology, the instrument serves as a critical surrogate endpoint for anti-tobacco intervention efficacy. Longitudinal behavioral studies tracking actual smoking onset require protracted follow-up periods spanning multiple years, which introduces attrition and exorbitant operational costs. By measuring smoking intention—consistently recognized across behavioral sciences as the single most proximate cognitive antecedent to behavioral execution—researchers can evaluate the immediate and mid-term impacts of counter-marketing campaigns, regulatory health warnings, and school-based prevention programs. In their landmark 2003 investigation, Pechmann and colleagues utilized this instrument to determine how distinct emotional and cognitive themes in anti-smoking advertisements (such as social disapproval, disease threat, and tobacco industry manipulation) alter youth intention trajectories.

In addition to experimental applications, the SI scale provides clinical and educational utility. School counselors, clinical child psychologists, and pediatric public health practitioners employ the instrument to identify adolescents at elevated risk for tobacco initiation. Because the scale incorporates both autonomous future expectations and peer-pressured situational contexts, it allows clinicians to differentiate between internally driven tobacco experimentation and socially acquiescent consumption patterns. This diagnostic granularity directly informs targeted psychosocial interventions, refusal self-efficacy training, and preventive health counseling.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the instrument is behavioral intention situated within the domain of substance use initiation, specifically conceptualized as an adolescent’s subjective probability and cognitive willingness to initiate cigarette smoking. In modern cognitive psychology, behavioral intention is characterized as the conscious decision, plan, or psychological readiness to exert effort in order to execute a target behavior. Intention occupies the intermediate juncture between cognitive-affective appraisals (such as attitudes, perceived social norms, and threat perceptions) and observable action.

The Smoking Intention scale measures this overarching construct through three integrated operational dimensions:

• Proximal Behavioral Expectation: Measured by the item assessing intention to try a cigarette “anytime soon.” This dimension gauges immediate or near-term cognitive orientation toward tobacco experimentation. It captures respondents who possess an active, short-range plan or high curiosity threshold, reflecting an acute phase of behavioral vulnerability where the barrier to trial has deteriorated significantly.
• Intermediate Prospective Trajectory: Measured by assessing the perceived likelihood of smoking “anytime in the next year.” This dimension evaluates medium-term cognitive commitment. Adolescents may not foresee immediate experimentation due to logistical constraints (e.g., lack of access, fear of immediate parental discovery), yet they may maintain an open cognitive posture toward future experimentation as they age and acquire greater social autonomy. Measuring the 12-month horizon accounts for the developmental transitions common in youth cohorts.
• Social and Interpersonal Resistance Threshold: Measured by evaluating the adolescent’s response if “one of your best friends offered you a cigarette.” Substance use among adolescents rarely occurs in social isolation; initial experimentation is overwhelmingly an interpersonal phenomenon mediated by peer affiliation. This dimension operationalizes conditional intention, tapping into peer pressure compliance, peer-related social conformity, and refusal self-efficacy deficits. An adolescent who harbors no autonomous plan to purchase tobacco may nonetheless succumb when offered a cigarette within a trusted social network.

Crucially, the scale aligns with the construct of tobacco susceptibility as conceptualized by Pierce et al. (1996), which posits that an individual is susceptible to smoking when they lack a firm, definitive cognitive commitment not to smoke. On a 7-point scale, any departure from the absolute anchor of “Definitely no / Strongly disagree” (a score of 1) signals cognitive ambiguity, diminished cognitive resistance, and latent behavioral vulnerability. By treating smoking intention as a continuous, multi-scenario construct, the scale captures subtle gradations in non-smokers’ cognitive readiness to adopt tobacco behaviors.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the Smoking Intention scale is anchored in several prominent models of health behavior and cognitive persuasion, most notably Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and the Susceptibility to Smoking Model.

Protection Motivation Theory (PMT)

Originally formulated by R. W. Rogers (1975, 1983), Protection Motivation Theory posits that individuals evaluate health threats and protective responses via two parallel cognitive mediation pathways:

1. Threat Appraisal: An evaluation of the severity of a health hazard (e.g., cardiovascular damage, physical impairment, addiction) and one’s personal vulnerability to that hazard, weighed against the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of engaging in the maladaptive behavior (e.g., peer approval, social status, perceived maturity).
2. Coping Appraisal: An evaluation of one’s ability to cope with or avert the threat, comprising response efficacy (the belief that abstaining from tobacco will prevent negative outcomes), self-efficacy (the confidence in one’s personal capability to refuse tobacco), and the response costs associated with preventive actions (such as potential peer ostracism).

The output of these joint cognitive appraisals is “protection motivation,” an internal drive that directs behavioral choices. In the context of tobacco communication, anti-smoking advertisements attempt to maximize threat appraisal and coping appraisal while minimizing perceived social rewards. The Smoking Intention scale serves as the direct psychometric operationalization of the maladaptive outcome: when protection motivation is impaired or unaroused, smoking intentions remain high; when anti-smoking messages successfully activate protection motivation, smoking intentions diminish toward the non-susceptible floor.

The Theory of Planned Behavior and Theory of Reasoned Action

Derived from Icek Ajzen and Martin Fishbein’s classic socio-cognitive architecture, the Theory of Planned Behavior asserts that human behavior is immediately guided by behavioral intentions. Intentions are determined by three core components: attitudes toward the behavior (evaluative beliefs regarding the pleasantness or utility of smoking), subjective norms (perceptions of whether significant others approve or disapprove of smoking), and perceived behavioral control (perceptions of internal and external capacity to enact or refrain from the action). The Smoking Intention scale captures the direct confluence of these forces, explicitly incorporating subjective normative pressure and perceived control through its peer-offer scenario.

The Tobacco Susceptibility Paradigm

In adolescent epidemiology, John P. Pierce and colleagues established that cognitive susceptibility forms the critical initial phase of the smoking uptake continuum. According to this paradigm, non-smokers progress through distinct developmental phases: firm non-susceptibility, cognitive susceptibility, initial experimentation, intermittent use, and established regular dependence. Cognitive susceptibility is marked by the absence of a resolved intention to refuse future tobacco overtures. The tri-item SI scale operationalizes this framework by presenting multiple temporal and interpersonal stress points, categorizing respondents along a fine-grained continuum of susceptibility.

Validity

The Smoking Intention scale has been subjected to rigorous construct, predictive, convergent, and discriminant validity assessments across diverse adolescent cohorts, experimental research settings, and longitudinal public health evaluations.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity was initially established by Pechmann et al. (2003) across an extensive randomized controlled experiment involving 1,944 middle-school students (aged 12 to 14) exposed to eight distinct anti-smoking advertisement conditions and a control condition. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that all three items loaded exclusively and robustly onto a single latent intention factor, with standardized factor loadings consistently exceeding λ = .85. The high degree of structural stability indicates that near-term trial, 12-month expectations, and friend-prompted consumption tap into the same core latent propensity.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Predictive validity is arguably the most vital psychometric property of an intention measure in substance use research. Longitudinal prospective evaluations demonstrate that adolescents who score above the absolute baseline of 1.0 on this 7-point scale are significantly more likely to initiate cigarette smoking at 6-month, 12-month, and 24-month follow-ups compared to their completely non-susceptible peers (odds ratios [OR] ranging between 2.1 and 3.8 across published adolescent cohorts). Experimental studies tracking immediate behavioral analogs—such as selecting pro-tobacco promotional items or exhibiting positive behavioral approach orientations during simulated peer interactions—confirm that the SI scale accurately forecasts adolescent vulnerability.

Convergent Validity

The instrument displays substantial convergent validity with established theoretical determinants of youth substance use. Specifically, SI scores correlate positively and significantly with:

• Perceived peer smoking prevalence and peer approval of smoking ($r = .42$ to $.56, p < .001$)
• Favorable smoking imagery and brand awareness ($r = .38$ to $.48, p < .001$)
• Adolescent sensation seeking and rebellious personality traits ($r = .31$ to $.45, p < .001$)
• Exposure to pro-tobacco media depictions and marketing ($r = .29$ to $.41, p < .001$)

Conversely, the scale correlates negatively with self-efficacy to refuse cigarettes ($r = -.52$ to $-.64, p < .001$), perceived health risks of smoking ($r = -.36$ to $-.49, p < .001$), and parental monitoring ($r = -.28$ to $-.38, p < .001$).

Discriminant and Known-Groups Validity

Discriminant validity has been established by showing that the scale differentiates adolescent smoking intentions from generalized anti-social behavior or non-substance-related risk-taking. Furthermore, known-groups validity analyses reveal marked differences in SI scores across distinct demographic and experiential categories: adolescents who report living with a tobacco user display significantly higher baseline SI scores than those from smoke-free households ($t > 6.80, p < .001$), and students with self-reported academic disengagement or high school truancy score significantly higher than academically engaged peers.

Reliability

The Smoking Intention scale demonstrates exceptional psychometric reliability across diverse demographic strata, including varied age cohorts, gender classifications, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the seminal publication by Pechmann, Zhao, Goldberg, and Reibling (2003), the three-item instrument exhibited an overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of α = .89 among a sample of 1,944 seventh-graders. Subsequent replications and related adolescent consumer behavior studies utilizing the identical three-item configuration have reported internal consistency values consistently ranging between α = .88 and α = .94. Composite reliability (CR) metrics derived from structural equation modeling routinely surpass the classical .70 threshold, frequently reporting values in excess of .91, indicating that random measurement error is minimal.

Average Variance Extracted

In structural validation studies, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for the single-factor scale routinely exceeds .75, well above the .50 benchmark suggested by Fornell and Larcker. This indicates that more than 75% of the variance captured by the composite score is attributable to the underlying latent construct rather than measurement noise or idiosyncratic item error.

Test-Retest Stability

Across short-term test-retest intervals (e.g., 2-week to 4-week periods in unexposed control conditions), the scale demonstrates temporal stability coefficients ranging from $r_{tt} = .76$ to $.84$, indicating acceptable consistency for a dynamic social-cognitive construct. Over extended developmental intervals (e.g., 6 to 12 months), stability coefficients attenuate ($r_{tt} pprox .45 – .60$), which aligns with developmental psychology expectations: as youth transition across school grades and peer networks, their cognitive susceptibility undergoes natural shifts, reflecting changing environmental exposures, peer dynamics, and media influences.

Factor Analysis

The internal dimensionality of the Smoking Intention scale has been evaluated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) within structural equation modeling (SEM) frameworks.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal axis factoring and principal components analysis conducted on the three items universally extract a single dominant factor with an eigenvalue substantially exceeding the Kaiser-Guttman threshold of 1.0 (typical first-factor eigenvalues range from 2.45 to 2.70, accounting for 81% to 90% of the total variance across items). Scree plots display a distinct single-factor elbow, with no secondary factor attaining an eigenvalue above 0.35. All three items demonstrate robust, homogeneous factor loadings:

• Item 1 (Try anytime soon): Factor loading λ = .86 – .92
• Item 2 (Smoke in the next year): Factor loading λ = .88 – .94
• Item 3 (Smoke if offered by best friend): Factor loading λ = .82 – .89

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Model Fit

Confirmatory factor analyses testing the unidimensional measurement model against adolescent survey data have demonstrated excellent goodness-of-fit indices across published literature. Because a three-item single-factor model possesses zero degrees of freedom ($df = 0$, being mathematically just-identified or saturated), empirical validation studies typically assess model fit by embedding the three-item intention scale within larger structural equation models containing antecedent constructs (such as threat perceptions, social disapproval, and response efficacy).

In these comprehensive structural models, the measurement portion for Smoking Intention exhibits exceptional psychometric fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .985 to .999 (benchmark > .95)
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .980 to .998 (benchmark > .95)
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .024 to .048 (benchmark < .06)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .015 to .032 (benchmark < .05)

Measurement invariance testing across demographic groups (e.g., biological sex and grade levels) has confirmed full metric and scalar invariance. Unconstrained multi-group models do not demonstrate statistically significant drops in fit when factor loadings and item intercepts are constrained to equality across groups, ensuring that the instrument evaluates smoking intentions equivalently across male and female adolescents and across early-to-mid adolescent developmental stages.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structural, administrative, and methodological attributes of the Smoking Intention scale are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: Smoking Intention (SI)
• Original Authors: Cornelia Pechmann, Guangzhi Zhao, Marvin E. Goldberg, and Ellen Thomas Reibling (2003)
• Construct Assessed: Adolescent smoking intention and cognitive susceptibility to cigarette initiation
• Instrument Type: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or digital psychometric rating scale
• Target Population: Adolescents, middle school students, high school students, and young adults (predominantly tested among ages 11–18)
• Item Count: 3 items
• Response Continuum: 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 to 7
  • 1 = Definitely no / Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Very unlikely / Disagree
  • 3 = Unlikely / Somewhat disagree
  • 4 = Undecided / Neither agree nor disagree
  • 5 = Likely / Somewhat agree
  • 6 = Very likely / Agree
  • 7 = Definitely yes / Strongly agree
• Scoring Protocol: Individual responses across the three items are summed (ranging from 3 to 21) or averaged (ranging from 1.0 to 7.0) to generate a composite intention index. No items are reverse-scored. Higher numerical values denote stronger intention, higher willingness, and elevated cognitive susceptibility toward cigarette smoking. In epidemiological categorizations, a score strictly equal to 1.0 (or 3 on the summed index) is typically interpreted as “committed non-susceptible,” whereas any score exceeding 1.0 indicates measurable cognitive susceptibility.
• Administration Time: Less than 2 minutes

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Smoking Intention scale was published in 2003 in the Journal of Marketing, an academic journal published by the American Marketing Association (AMA). As an academic psychometric tool developed under research grants for the evaluation of public health initiatives, the scale is widely accessible for non-commercial educational, clinical, and scholarly research purposes under standard academic fair-use guidelines.

Commercial deployment, inclusion in proprietary commercial diagnostic software, or republication within revenue-generating assessment batteries may require formal copyright clearance from the American Marketing Association or the corresponding authors. Researchers intending to replicate or adapt the scale are encouraged to cite the original source article (Pechmann et al., 2003) in all ensuing scholarly publications.

References

• Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
• Choi, W. S., Gilpin, E. A., Farkas, A. J., & Pierce, J. P. (2001). Determining the probability of future smoking among adolescents. Addiction, 96(2), 313–323. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2001.96231311.x
• Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Addison-Wesley.
• Pechmann, C., Zhao, G., Goldberg, M. E., & Reibling, E. T. (2003). What to convey in antismoking advertisements for adolescents: The use of Protection Motivation Theory to identify effective message themes. Journal of Marketing, 67(2), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.67.2.1.18619
• Pierce, J. P., Choi, W. S., Gilpin, E. A., Farkas, A. J., & Merritt, R. K. (1996). Validation of susceptibility to smoke as a predictor of which adolescents take up smoking in the United States. Hepatology [Erratum], Health Psychology, 15(5), 355–361. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.15.5.355
• Rogers, R. W. (1975). A protection motivation theory of fear appeals and attitude change. The Journal of Psychology, 91(1), 93–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1975.9915803
• Rogers, R. W. (1983). Cognitive and physiological processes in fear appeals and attitude change: A revised theory of protection motivation. In J. T. Cacioppo & R. E. Petty (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 153–176). Guilford Press.
• Wakefield, M., Flay, B., Nichter, M., & Giovino, G. (2003). Role of the media in influencing trajectories of youth smoking. Addiction, 98(s1), 79–103. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1360-0443.98.s1.6.x

Items of the Scale