UC San Diego

Objective

Expectancies about social outcomes for smoking are relevant to college student smokers, who frequently report "social smoking." A new measure, the Social Facilitation Expectancies (SFE) scale, was developed to assess these beliefs.

Participants

The SFE was administered to undergraduate college student smokers (N = 1,096; study completed in May 2011).

Methods

Items were scored on a 5-point scale with a summed total score. The sample was randomly split and principle axis factoring and confirmatory factor analysis applied to determine scale structure. The structure was tested across sex and smoking groups and validation analyses were conducted.

Results

A 9-item, 1-factor scale was replicated within each group. Higher SFE scores were observed among those with greater smoking experience and higher scores were associated with greater endorsement of other smoking-related beliefs.

Conclusions

These preliminary findings provide support for the sound psychometric properties of this measure for use with young adult college students.