Social influences: effects of the social environment on the use of alcohol and other drugs.

The research aimed to measure social influences produced by the differential effects of "high use" and "low use" environments on students' vulnerability to substance misuse. Each environment was represented by 3,000 students sampled from high and low use colleges. The social influences were measured by comparing vulnerability/resistance scores derived through a cognitive mapping strategy of the Associative Group Analysis method. Using an advanced system of software, empirical measures of students' propensities to use or not to use harmful substances were obtained by comparing hundreds of spontaneous responses elicited from individual respondents to the response distributions of reference groups of frequent alcohol/drug users and nonusers. In all comparisons, students with higher levels of reported use also showed higher vulnerability. In all comparisons, students in the high use environment showed significantly higher levels of vulnerability than students in the low use environment. ANOVA results indicated the vulnerability of students was significantly related to (high vs low use) campus environment as well as to marijuana use, alcohol use, and gender. Measuring vulnerability as a function of social influences opens numerous applications in proactive prevention.

Vulnerabilities and cultural change: drug use among Puerto Rican adolescents in the United States.

The investigations examined drug usage-based and culture-based differences in young Puerto Ricans living in New York (100 nonusers and 192 drug users), Americans living in New York (100 nonusers and 99 drug users), and Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico (100 nonusers and 98 drug users). The Associative Group Analysis method was used to measure cultural change in three dimensions: dominant perceptions, priorities, and evaluations. The findings show that the Puerto Rican drug user and nonuser groups in New York differed significantly in their paths of acculturation. The nonusers were shown to progress successfully in learning American meanings and adopting American perspectives and cultural norms. The drug users were attracted to dominant American priorities (e.g., wealth and freedom) but showed little progress in adopting deeper American cultural meanings necessary for effective coping.

Perceived harm, age, and drug use: perceptual and motivational dispositions affecting drug use.

Free associations reveal a close relationship between drug use and such psychological dispositions as dominant perceptions, attitudes, and systems of mental representations. The investigations reported here address the relationship of perceived harm or appeal of drugs, age, and reported drug use through analysis of the free associations of students from elementary to graduate school. Subsamples of drug users and non-users are also included. Comparisons across the range of years studied (10 to 29) showed how subjective meanings and the system of mental representation, including those characteristic of drug users and non-users, evolve as a function of age. Based on the domains studied, the distance measured between user/non-user groups and between age groups showed systematic and predictable increases reflecting on construct validity. The perceptual and motivational dispositions identified were significantly correlated with drug use (behavioral validation). The results offer new insights into the role of such variables as perceived harm and subjective appeal.