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Gender role socialization differentially influences attitudes toward substance abuse for boys and girls. Students (n = 968, 456 = males, M age = 16.20, SD = 1.20) were administered a questionnaire to assess their perceptions of attitudes toward substance abuse. Boys' approval was significantly different than the level of approval estimated for girls on teenagers drinking beer or wine coolers chi 2 (4,n = 931) = 418.58, p < .00001, drinking hard liquor chi 2 (4,n = 921) = 432.49, p < .00001, driving after drinking chi 2 (4,n = 924) = 492.32, p < .00001, smoking marijuana chi 2 (4,n = 921) = 609.62, p < .00001, smoking cigarettes chi 2 (4,n = 927) = 480.35, p < .00001, taking diet pills to lose weight chi 2 (4,n = 914) = 185.05, p < .00001, and taking diet pills to get high chi 2 (4,n = 921) = 428.43, p < .00001. Teens viewed getting drunk at a party as more acceptable than driving after drinking 2 (4,n = 921) = 264.10, p < .00001, but gave boys more approval than girls for driving after drinking. Possible implications of these findings are discussed.

After a review of current conceptual models used in nutrition studies, we develop and test a ‘Dietary Change Model’ based on a sample of older rural adults. Predictor variables include socio-demographic, social network, and nutritional risk/support constructs; mediating variables include number of dietary changes attempted and whether the changes are successfully made; and criterion variables focus on psychosocial outcomes. The model is tested on a sample of 298 randomly selected respondents aged 60 years or more residing in five rural communities in Oregon. We find that those most likely to make dietary changes are women, married, and living in smaller households. The social network factors of density, range, and frequency of interaction negatively impact healthy dietary change. Among the most important nutritional support factors to have positive effects on dietary change are having a physician recommend changes in diet, and participating in a community food programme (women only). Successfully changing diet most clearly related to life satisfaction; results of other criterion variables were often complicated by marked gender differences.

This paper reports on a survey conducted among elderly Chinese in Taiwan and Americans in eastern Oregon. The focus is on health status and selected social network characteristics (such as range, density, and percentage of relatives) as they relate to life satisfaction. In addition to examining differences among these and other variables in the two national samples, two hypotheses are tested using hierarchical regression analysis. The first hypothesis relates higher values of range and density to greater life satisfaction. The second is a test of the stress-buffering hypothesis. We then examine the data controlling for gender and conclude with a discussion and interpretation of both the national and gender differences yielded by this analysis.

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