The interrelationship between substance use and precocious transitions to adult statuses.

This study focuses on the interrelationship between premature or precocious transitions to adult statuses and roles and the use of alcohol and drugs. Panel data from early adolescence to young adulthood for a sample for a sample of youth who were at high risk for serious delinquent behavior is used. The results indicate that use of alcohol and drugs in early adolescence increases the risk of dropping out of school, becoming pregnant or impregnating someone, becoming a teenage parent, and living independently from parents or guardians prematurely. In turn, experiencing these precocious transitions increases the risk of the use of alcohol and drugs when respondents are young adults. The importance of these findings to the life course perspective generally and to interactional theory specifically are discussed.

The short-term effects of competition and rewards in an adolescent smoking prevention program.

This study evaluated whether interventions involving competition and rewards would enhance a school-based educational curriculum on tobacco use. Written pre- and post-tests were used to assess the relevant knowledge of 1068 seventh grade students in three comparable communities. The students' smoking beliefs, intentions, and behavior were assessed by questionnaires before and after the educational unit. Students in two communities participated in interventions designed to enhance knowledge acquisition, social activism, and non-use of tobacco; students in one community served as controls. Students in competitive and control communities did not differ prior to intervention. The interventions influenced respondents' concern about their health and the health of their family and friends and increased the likelihood that they would associate smoking with maturity and short-term bad effects, regardless of their pre-intervention smoking behavior. Experimenters' and regular smokers' knowledge about smoking and its consequences, and concern about the amount of substance use in their town were increased by the competitions. The competitions were also more likely to reduce their intentions to smoke. The interventions did not affect smoking behavior. Fortunately, competition losers and winners were not differentially affected by the interventions.

Social disaffection, friendship patterns and adolescent cigarette use: the Muscatine Study.

This study was undertaken to determine if adolescent social disaffection with school and family not only would be a significant predictor of cigarette use but would explain a significant amount of the association with friends who smoke. Eleven hundred and eighty ninth-12th grade students in Muscatine, Iowa, were surveyed in Spring 1984. Multiple regression analyses indicated several social disaffection variables were significant predictors of association with friends who smoke, explaining 20% of the variance. The combination of association with friends who smoke and social disaffection variables explained 48% of the variance in adolescent cigarette smoking. Variables related to adolescents' participation in school and related activities suggest prevention programs should recognize the impact of social disaffection on adolescents cigarette use.

Social influences and constraints on the initiation and cessation of adolescent tobacco use.

This research examines the viability of a theoretical perspective which combines social bonding theory and differential association theory in explaining the initiation and cessation of adolescent tobacco use. Three-year panel data collected from seventh- to twelfth-grade adolescents were analyzed using differences in means tests and discriminant analysis. The findings indicate overall support for the theoretical model in discriminating between (1) initiators and stable nonsmokers and (2) cessators and stable smokers. However, there were some differences in the variables found to be important at each stage of adolescent smoking. Commitment to education, attachment to father and mother, and association with female smoking friends were the most effective discriminators for the initiation stage, while attachment to father, beliefs, and association with both male and female smoking friends were important for the cessation stage. Findings are also discussed for males and females and for junior and senior high-school adolescents.