Authors : Abbas Abdollahi and Mansor Abu Talib
Abstract: Smoking is the biggest threat to public health and it remains a serious cause of death in the world. Remarkably, the age of the onset of cigarette smoking is decreasing. Therefore, it is essential to increase the knowledge concerning the attitudes among adolescents towards cigarette smoking. The present study sought to examine the associations among emotional intelligence and locus of control with attitudes towards cigarette smoking in adolescents. The participants, comprising 550 high school students (aged between 16-19 years old, M = 17.1, SD = 0.93) from Tehran completed the Assessing Emotions Scale, Locus of Control of Behavior and Attitudes towards Smoking Scale. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) estimated that adolescents with a high ability for emotional intelligence and internal locus of control were more likely to report negative attitudes towards cigarette smoking. This study showed that greater emotional intelligence and internal locus of control for adolescents were protective factors against smoking. Therefore, these findings reinforce the importance of emotional intelligence training and locus of control training in preventing cigarette smoking in adolescents.
Abbas Abdollahi and Mansor Abu Talib, 2014. To Examine the Relationships Between Emotional Intelligence, Locus of Control and Smoking in Adolescents. Research Journal of Applied Sciences, 9: 418-423.