Teenagers like to smoke more fruit-flavored cigarettes, even though these kinds of smokes were banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2009. In general smoking is considering the leading preventable cause of death in America.

In a recent study, researchers found that those teens that tend to new experiences were especially attracted to cigarettes described as having an appealing, sweet flavor.

Previous research has found that high-sensation-seeking youth are more likely to smoke cigarettes than their low-sensation-seeking peers. But until this recent study, no studies have looked at how new, and sweet-tasting cigarettes can attract more youth smokers.

The researchers wanted to find how the description of a cigarette’s flavor can be capable of gaining attention and exiting the nervous system.
In this study were investigated 253 high school students which were divided into two groups to estimate three pictures of cigarette packages: Camel, American Spirit, and an invented brand, “Onyx.” The first group viewed packages that contained traditional cigarette descriptions such as “native blend,” and the second group of teens viewed packages with the cigarettes described as “cherry.” Then the participants responded to several questions concerning the attractiveness of the brand.

To determine their sensation-seeking aims, the students answered to measures such as “I would like to investigate strange places” and “I like friends who are exciting and changeable.”

Sensation-seeking differed during investigation, explained researchers. At the end of the study researchers found that the appeal of the cigarettes brands across the belief, attitude, and trial intention measures depended on both the sensation-seeking tendency of the student and whether the student had viewed the brand packages with the traditional or sweet taste descriptions.

In particular, among students who were classified as high-sensation seekers, the cigarette brands were meaningly more appealing to those exposed to the packages that contained the sweet flavor descriptors than to those who had saw the packages with the traditional descriptions.

Researchers concluded that by enhancing the arousal potential associated with tobacco brands, sweet flavor descriptors encourage the appeal of these products among high-sensation seekers.

By Kevin Lawson, Staff Writer. Copyright © 2010 TobaccoPub. All rights reserved.