Psychosocial correlates of adolescent smokeless tobacco use.

The current study investigated psychosocial correlates of adolescent smokeless tobacco use. Subjects viewed smokeless tobacco use as less of a health danger than smoking and as more socially acceptable. The social image associated with smokeless tobacco use was an ambivalent one that in some ways matched the masculine, athletic image features in advertising. Subjects' beliefs about the health consequences of smokeless tobacco use, its social acceptability, and its associated social image related to current tobacco use and (among nonusers) to intentions to use tobacco in the future.