The Association of Social Desirability and Social Intelligence with Smoking among Undergraduates

Abstract

Our aim was to examine the inter-relationship between smoking, social intelligence and social desirability in undergraduate students. The present study sample consisted of 200 first year undergraduate students. The questionnaire included information about socio-demographic factors, smoking, anxiety, stress, depression, social intelligence (Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale - TSIS) and social desirability (Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale short form C). In the whole study groups, smoking status was correlated with gender (P<0.05), anxiety level (P<0.05), levels of social information (P<0.05) and levels of social skills (P<0.0001). Smokers were mainly males than females (P<0.05) and revealed higher values of self-reported anxiety (P<0.05), levels of social information (P<0.05) and social skills (P<0.0001) than non-smokers. Among males, smokers revealed lower values of self-reported depression compared with non-smokers (P<0.05). Among girls, smokers presented higher values of anxiety (P<0.05), depression (P<0.01), social skills (P<0.0001) and social information processing (P<0.05). In the whole group, multiple regression analyses models demonstrated significant contributions of social skills (P<0.0001) and social awareness (P = 0.002) to smoking status. Among males, multiple regression analyses demonstrated significant contributions of anxiety (P<0.05), depression (P = 0.003), social awareness (P = 0.005) social skills (P<0.05) and social desirability (P = 0.05) to current smoking status. Among females, significant contributions of depression (P<0.05) and social skills (P<0.0001) to smoking status were revealed. We can conclude that our research found important inter-relations between social desirability and social intelligence subscales to smoking status.