I have chosen to research the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the topic that i will be using for this is Smoking. .
I am hoping to reduce the number of smokers among my participants. .
The participants that took part in my research to decrease the number of youth who smoke, were 10 males and 10 females between the ages of 15 - 25 years. Also included in my research were the daughter of a smoker who recently died of lung cancer and a close friend of the recently decesed, who used to be a smoker but quit many years ago.
I approached this topic not only by questioning the participants on the reasons why they smoke and what 'good' it does for them but also weighed up the disadvantages, such as the fact that they are literally burning their money, ruining their health and giving in to a 'dirty' habit. The reasoning that the participants gave for their smoking habits varied from being a 'social smoker' to 'it's a habit, i'm addicted' to 'all my friends smoke'. One participant's response was 'just because'! I then proceeded to ask them if it is an enjoyable habit, asked them if they didnt notice how bad it smelt. Funnily enough not many of the participants actually enjoyed smoking yet they still did. Oh and you get used to the smell. Contining on my way i decided to then ask the participants on average how much they spend on cigarettes per week. I then asked them to calculate this for the year. When we saw the amounts they were spending on cigarettes per year we were all quite amazed. Next question was what would they do with all that extra money? They are all relatively young and therefore don't earn much money, they all did have much better things to spend this sort of money on. I also decided that the participants all being relatively young, were living for the moment and weren't all that concerned about the distant future. I wanted to try and shock them into reality. This is where the other two participants come in.