Smoking at the workplace: Effects of genetic and environmental causal accounts on attitudes towards smoking employees and restrictive policies.

People hold diverse beliefs regarding the etiologies of individual and group differences in behaviors which, in turn, might affect their attitudes and behaviors. It is important to establish how perceived etiologies for smoking might affect the effectiveness of policy initiatives and prevention efforts. The present study assessed whether exposure to genetic vs. environmental accounts for smoking affects attitudes towards a) workplace-related smoking policies and b) smokers at the workplace. Results indicate that exposure to a genetic explanation led to stronger objections to a smoking restrictive policy compared with a non-genetic explanation. Additionally, participants in the genetic condition were more accepting of a smoker in the workplace than in the environmental condition. Evidently, beliefs about the etiology of smoking influence a range of attitudes related to smokers and smoking related policies.