10.1177/0044118X05282363 YOUTH & SOCIETY / JUNE 2006 Nofziger , Lee / SMOKING AND ADOLESCENTS DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATIONS AND DAILY SMOKING OF ADOLESCENTS The Importance of Same-Sex Models STACEY NOFZIGER University of Akron HYE-RYEON LEE University of Hawaii at Manoa This article examines whether the importance of parents, siblings, best friends, and romantic interests are sex-specific in predicting daily juvenile smoking. Juveniles who smoke daily are strongly influenced by prosmoking attitudes and behaviors of same- sex family members. However, peers remain the most important associations in pre- dicting daily smoking. An important finding is that juveniles without same-sex family role models, or close peers, are at higher risk. Policy implications for prevention and cessation programs are discussed. Keywords: juvenile daily smoking; differential association theory; siblings; smoking Smoking is consistently identified as the largest cause of preventable disease in our society. Tobacco is responsible for more American deaths than the combination of those due to alcohol, car accidents, ho- micides, firearms, AIDS, and hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1995). Studies have shown that smoking is prevalent among youth (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1998), that smoking onset typically oc- curs in early adolescence (U.S. Department of Health and Human Ser- 453 AUTHORS’ NOTE: This article was supported in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Please address all correspondence to Dr. Stacey Nofziger, De- partment of Sociology, Olin Hall 247, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-1905; e- mail: sn18@uakron.edu. YOUTH & SOCIETY, Vol. 37 No. 4, June 2006 453-478 DOI: 10.1177/0044118X05282363 © 2006 Sage Publications