Methods Procedure In October, 2010, students at six colleges in the Southeast were recruited to complete an online survey. A random sample of 5,000 students at each school (with the exclusion of two considering schools who had enrollment less than 5,000) were invited to complete the survey (total invited N = 24,055). Students received an E-mail containing a link to the consent form with the alternative of opting out. Students who consented to participate were directed to the online survey. To encourage participation, students received up to three E-mail invitations to participate. As an incentive for participation, all students who completed the survey received entry into a drawing for cash prizes of $1,000 (one prize), $500 (two prizes), and $250 (four prizes) at each participating school.

Of students who received the invitation to participate, 4,840 (20.1%) returned a completed survey. Consistent with our focus on young adults who may be initiating or escalating their smoking, the present study focused on students aged 18�C25 years (N = 4,355) who also had complete smoking data. Thus, the analyses were conducted on a final sample size of N = 3,863. The Emory University Institutional Review Board approved this study, IRB# 00030631. Measures The newly developed instrument was administered as part of the online survey containing 230 questions assessing a variety of health topic areas, which took approximately 20�C25 min to complete. For the current investigation, only questions related to demographic characteristics and smoking behavior and attitudes were included.

Demographic characteristics assessed included students�� age, gender, ethnicity, highest parental educational attainment, and relationship status. Ethnicity was categorized as non-Hispanic White, Black, or Other due to the small numbers of participants who reported other race/ethnicities. Highest parental educational attainment was categorized as high school graduate or General Education Development, some college, or greater than or equal to Bachelor��s degree based on the distribution of parental educational attainment. Relationship status was categorized as single/never married versus other. For ease of interpretation, these categorizations were chosen. Classifying a Smoker Scale This scale was developed using results from focus groups with young adults (Berg et al.

, 2010) and were theoretically based on schema theory (Bartlett, 1932). The items were created by the research team and were screened for clarity and face validity by four experts in tobacco research. The scale consists of 10 items. Cilengitide Participants were instructed to, ��on a scale of 1�C7, indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statements�� with anchors of 1 = strongly disagree, 4 = neutral, and 7 = strongly agree. The stem leading into each statement was ��In order for me to consider someone a smoker ��.�� Each item is listed in Table 2.