The role of self-construal in resisting tobacco smoking

Abstract

We interpreted depth interviews and personal observations of 29 Tongan and New Zealand European (NZE) women who self-identified as non-smokers to examine the role of self-construal in the creation and maintenance of their smoking-resistant identities. Our research offers substantive contributions to the smoking prevention literature because most prior work has been situated wholly within Western cultural contexts. We contribute methodologically by showing how a multicultural team-based approach can reap the advantages of interviewer–participant congruity whilst overcoming its limitations, thus paving the way for more fruitful qualitative research with minority groups. Our research also contributes theoretically to the self-construal literature by comparing the role of self-construal not just within the two groups but also across them. Our findings show that independent self-construal played a significant role in NZE women's resistance to smoking. However, for Tongan women, both independent and interdependent self-construals played important roles in their smoking resistance. Our findings both confirm and extend the current view that there are marked differences between collectivist and independent societies. We extend this view because our findings contradict the notion that Tongan women are likely to only use an interdependent self-concept when deciding to resist smoking, suggesting instead that Tongan women negotiate their self-construals in ways that allow them to employ the positives from both Tongan values and Western world views. We suggest that future appeals to Pacific women to resist smoking should draw on both traditional Pacific values and modern Western independence.