The Big-Five Personality Traits, Maternal Smoking during Pregnancy, and Educational Qualifications as Predictors of Tobacco Use in a Nationally Representative Sample

Helen Cheng and Adrian Furnham

PLOS ONE, 2016, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Objective: To investigate the associations between the Big-Five personality traits, parental social class, maternal smoking status during pregnancy, childhood cognitive ability, education and occupation, and tobacco use in a longitudinal birth cohort study. Method: 17,415 babies born in Great Britain in 1958 and followed up at 11, 33, and 50 years of age. Lifelong tobacco use status (ever/never) and current tobacco use status (yes/no) at age 50 years were the outcome measures respectively. Results: Logistic regression analyses showed that among the 5,840 participants with complete data, whilst maternal smoking status, educational qualifications, and all the big-5 personality traits were significant predictors of adult lifelong tobacco use; educational qualifications, own occupational levels, traits Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness were significant predictors of current smoking status. In lifelong measure men tended to have a greater rate of tobacco use than women (52.1% in men and 49.2% in women). However, the sex effect on lifelong tobacco use ceased to be significant once a set of socio-economic and psychological variables in childhood and adulthood were taken into account. Conclusion: Educational qualifications and the Big-Five personality traits were significantly associated with both current and lifelong tobacco use status.

Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0145552

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145552

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