%0 Journal Article %A Janet Hoek %A Ninya Maubach %A Rachel Stevenson %A Philip Gendall %A Richard Edwards %T Social smokers' management of conflicted identities %D 2013 %R 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2011-050176 %J Tobacco Control %P 261-265 %V 22 %N 4 %X Background Although social smoking has increased among young adults, it remains a poorly understood behaviour. The authors explored how young adult social smokers viewed and defined smoking and the strategies they used to reconcile their conflicting smoker and non-smoker identities. The authors also examined alcohol's role in facilitating social smoking and investigated measures that would decouple drinking and smoking. Methods The authors conducted 13 in-depth interviews with young adult social smokers aged between 19 and 25 years and used thematic analysis to interpret the transcripts. Results The authors identified four key themes: the demarcation strategies social smokers used to avoid classifying themselves as smokers, social smoking as a tactic that ameliorates the risk of alienation, alcohol as a catalyst of social smoking and the difficulty participants experienced in reconciling their identity as non-smokers who smoke. Conclusions Although social smokers regret smoking, their retrospective remorse was insufficient to promote behaviour change, and environmental modifications appear more likely to promote smoke-free behaviours among social smokers. Participants strongly supported extending the smoke-free areas outside bars, a measure that would help decouple their alcohol-fuelled behaviours from the identity to which they aspire. %U https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/tobaccocontrol/22/4/261.full.pdf