@article {Hoektobaccocontrol-2011-050176, author = {Janet Hoek and Ninya Maubach and Rachel Stevenson and Philip Gendall and Richard Edwards}, title = {Social smokers{\textquoteright} management of conflicted identities}, elocation-id = {tobaccocontrol-2011-050176}, year = {2012}, doi = {10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2011-050176}, publisher = {BMJ Publishing Group Ltd}, abstract = {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{\textquoteright}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.}, issn = {0964-4563}, URL = {https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2012/01/20/tobaccocontrol-2011-050176}, eprint = {https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2012/01/20/tobaccocontrol-2011-050176.full.pdf}, journal = {Tobacco Control} }