No abstract

Tested propositions from a model of vulnerability and protective factors with a multiethnic sample of 1,289 urban adolescents, aged 11-13 years. The criterion variable was a composite score for cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use. Multiple regression analyses indicated that vulnerability factors (negative life events, negative affect) were related to a higher level of substance use, and protective factors (parent emotional and instrumental support, academic and adult competence, positive affect) were related to a lower level of substance use; peer competence was positively related to substance use in a multivariate model. There was a significant overall interaction of Vulnerability x Protective Factors, consistent with a stress-buffering effect. Individual interactions for Life Events x Family Support, Life Events x Competence, and Negative x Positive Affect also were consistent with buffering effects. Implications for theories of substance use and primary prevention are discussed.

The authors surveyed a cohort of 1,184 adolescents in the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Measures of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use and of constructs from 3 theoretical models of substance use were obtained at each point. Clustering analysis for 3-wave substance use data indicated subgroups of nonusers, minimal experimenters, late starters, and escalators. Discriminant function analyses tested whether study variables differentiated the subgroups. One discriminant function accounted for the majority of between-group association; it had loadings for (high) life stress, nonadaptive coping, deviance-prone attitudes, and parental and peer substance use, and (low) parental support, academic competence, and behavioral control. Escalators were high on this function; late starters and experimenters had intermediate values; and nonusers were low on the function. Implications for theories of vulnerability to substance abuse are discussed.

This research was conducted to determine variables that characterize adolescents who show escalation in substance use over the period from early to middle adolescence. In recent years it has been recognized that although many teenagers engage in experimentation with tobacco or alcohol, only some go on to develop substance use problems in late adolescence or early adulthood (Glantz & Pickens, 1992;Kandel & Yamaguchi, 1985). Accordingly, a focus in research has been to determine factors that discriminate adolescents who develop high-intensity use from those who never use cigarettes or alcohol or those who remain at a low level of Reprinted from the J o u d of Abnormal Psychology, 105,[166][167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176][177][178][179][180]