Symbolic smoking : A quantitative survey of peers’ impressions of a smoking adolescent girl, and a theoretical analysis of the symbolic capital generated by the impressions

Sammanfattning: In the present study, I analyze adolescent girls’ smoking through a unique combination of a quantitative survey of impressions and a theoretical analysis based on new elaborations of Bourdieu’s concept symbolic capital. The method of the study is three-fold. First, focus-group interviews elicit relevant impressions of adolescents in the eyes of peers. Second, a questionnaire survey distributed to adolescent peers quantitatively investigates how impressions of a girl on a picture differ depending on whether or not she has a cigarette. Third, a theoretical analysis based on elaborations of Bourdieu’s theories scrutinizes the results of the questionnaire survey. The results of the questionnaire survey indicate that smoking adolescent girls generate impressions of being significantly less likable, more popular, more conceited, less kind, less shy, more liable to bully, less funny, more deceitful, and less compassionate than non-smoking adolescent girls. In the elaborations of Bourdieu’s theories, I introduce a division of symbolic capital into two forms: symbolic virtue capital, generated through impressions of virtues, and symbolic power capital, generated through intimidating impressions of destructive power. According to the theoretical analysis of the results, smoking adolescent girls have relatively much symbolic power capital but relatively little symbolic virtue capital compared to adolescent girls that do not smoke.