Navigating social interactions and constructing vaping social identities: A qualitative exploration with New Zealand young adults who smoke

Abstract

Introduction: Social interactions help smoking and vaping practices evolve, and are essential when constructing social identities. Among people who smoke, vaping offers an alternative practice to ‘smoking’ and ‘non-smoking’, and using e-cigarettes blurs the boundaries between ‘smoker’ and ‘non-smoker’ social identities. In this study, we explored the development of vaping and smoking social identities over time among young adults who smoked and used e-cigarettes. Methods: Over 18–24 weeks during 2018–2019, we conducted five interviews with each of 11 New Zealand young adults aged 19–29 years who tried vaping to stop smoking. We analysed participants' interview transcripts for social interactions involving smoking or vaping and used social identity theory to explore their construction of vaping social identities. Results: Participants entered the study with smoke-free goals, and constructed social identities explicitly in relation to a smoke-free transition. Two key identity processes, ‘adopting legitimacy’ and ‘transferring considerateness’, informed participants' social identity construction as they attempted to reconcile their e-cigarette use with their pre-study characterisations of vaping as ‘illegitimate’ and ‘obnoxious’. Our findings suggest that adopting a ‘legitimate’ vaper identity focussed on smoking cessation, and being perceived and accepted by others as a ‘legitimate vaper’, were essential in participants' identification as ‘vapers’. Identifying as a ‘legitimate’ vaper was a pre-requisite to transferring a ‘considerate’ identity from smoking to vaping. Discussion and Conclusion: Participants' construction of vaping social identities suggests that negotiating and reconciling valued aspects of a smoking social identity with nascent vaping practices may be important during smoking-to-vaping transition attempts.