Teenagers continue to be initiated into smoking, especially young women. A predictor of smoking is the existence of stressors in their life. The major components of smoking motivation have been found to be similar in young smokers to those found in older smokers, except for the appearance of a group who are resisting the pressures against smoking. There is no evidence that the smokers of the future will be more extreme personality types than the smokers of 10 or more years ago. Changes in demographic characteristics of smokers in the United Kingdom and the United States in favour of relatively more women and more smokers from the poorer socio-economic groups requires investigation into whether this is attributable to different coping requirements in these groups.