Extrinsic Life Goals and Health‐Risk Behaviors in Adolescents¹

Guided by self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), two studies examined adolescents' risk behaviors as a function of their extrinsic aspirations for wealth, fame, and image relative to their intrinsic aspirations for growth, relationships, and community; and as a function of their perceptions of their parents' autonomy support. In the first study, adolescents who reported using cigarettes had significantly stronger relative extrinsic aspirations than did adolescents who reported not smoking. In the second study, a composite risk behavior index for adolescents' use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, and their having had sexual intercourse was significantly predicted by their relative extrinsic life goals, and both students' health‐compromising behaviors and their relative extrinsic goals were significantly negatively predicted by their perceptions of their parents' autonomy support.