1 Trends in Cigarette Consumption and the Sociodemographic Structure of the Smoking Population in Developed Industrial Countries -- 1.1 Trends in Cigarette Consumption in the USA and the Member Countries of the European Community -- 1.2 A Critical Look at Available Data on the Sociodemographic Structure of the Smoking Population in West Germany -- 1.3 The Sociodemographic Structure of the Smoking Population of West Germany -- Notes -- 2 Why Do Smokers Smoke? A Survey of the Various Approaches to the Question of Smoker Motivation -- 2.1 The Genetic Approach -- 2.2 The Physiological Approach: Smoking as an Addiction -- 2.3 The Psychological Approach -- 2.4 The Sociological Approach -- 2.5 Summary -- Notes -- 3 The Typical Smoking Career: The Development of Smoking Behaviour from a Biographical Viewpoint -- 3.1 Initiation Phase -- 3.2 Habituation -- 3.3 Cessation Phase -- 3.4 Oscillation – Another Smoking Career? -- 3.5 Summary -- Notes -- 4 The Psychosocial Benefits and the Health Risks of Smoking -- 4.1 Current Opinions – Smoking as a Health Risk -- 4.2 Discounting – Strategies to Minimize Risk -- 4.3 The Psychosocial Benefits of Smoking -- 4.4 The Cost/Benefit Balance as Considered by Smokers –and the Difficulties Confronting Social Scientists in Trying to Verify This Phenomenon -- Notes -- 5 Summary -- 6 Perspectives for Future Research into Smoker Motivation -- 6.1 Outline of a Multidimensional Theoretical Model to Explain Smoking Behaviour -- 6.2 Basic Elements of the Prospective Research Project on Smoker Motivation -- References.

An examination of recent literature on the subject of smoking shows that the growth in the volume of medical research into the conse­ quences of smoking (i. e. research designed to prove that smoking is hazardous to health) correlates with an increase in the amount of empirical social research on the smoker and the causes of smoking. It almost seems as if there is a causal relationship between the number of medical publications and the number of social investigations on this subject. Certainly, since the appearance of the Surgeon Gener­ al's Report on Smoking and Health in 1964 there has been a steady increase in the number of studies on the risks involved by smoking. In the meantime literally thousands of investigations have also been carried out on the causes of smoking behaviour. Probably no other section of society has been subjected to such meticulous examina­ tion. It is unlikely that any aspect of the smoker's life has escaped scrutiny - from their blood group to the girth of their calf muscles, from their development in infancy and early childhood to the num­ ber of arguments they have with their spouse, from their personality structure to their educational prowess and professional achieve­ ment.

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