Gender Differences and Psychosocial Factors Associated with Alcohol Involvement and Dysphoria in Adolescence

Abstract

Correlations between Alcohol Involvement, Dysphoria, and their combined effects, with Social Conformity, Perceived Opportunity, Relationship Satisfaction, parental divorce, and Family Support/Bonding were examined with Structural Equation Modeling in a community sample of late adolescents (males = 290, females = 606). Results revealed gender differences between Alcohol Involvement and Dysphoria. Girls had an affectively-involved style of alcohol use that was reflected in a second-order construct, while Alcohol Involvement and Dysphoria were unrelated for teenage boys. Boys had a stronger association between Alcohol Involvement and less Family Support/Bonding than girls. Less satisfaction with opposite sex friends was related to more Alcohol Involvement for boys and more Dysphoria for girls.

Does Alcohol or Delinquency Help Adolescents Feel Better Over Time? A Study on the Influence of Heavy Drinking and Violent/Property Offending on Negative Emotions

“…Similarly, the National Comorbidity Survey reported that the comorbidity rate between alcohol use and affective disorders was higher for women than men (Kessler et al, 1997). Being consistent with this finding, heavy drinking was found to be a risk factor for later depressive symptoms among adolescent girls but not among adolescent boys (Locke & Newcomb, 2003;Poulin, Hand, Boudreau, & Santor, 2005). Perhaps this was partly because female teenagers were more likely to be socially stigmatized for underage use of alcohol than their male counterparts as heavy drinking would not have been considered to be within normal female gender roles (Way et al, 1994).…”

Alcohol involvement and dysphoria: A longitudinal examination of gender differences from late adolescence to adulthood.

“…Martin, Lynch, Pollack, and Clark (2000) found gender differences in levels of negative emotionality but gender similarities in the degree of association between negative emotionality and alcohol problems. Using cross-sectional data, we (Locke & Newcomb, 2000) found that negative affect (dysphoria) and alcohol use were related for adolescent females but not for males. Negative affect has also been studied as a mediator between stressful life events and alcohol consumption (Hussong & Chassin, 1993).…”

Mediation of Late Adolescent Health‐Risk Behaviors and Gender Influences

“…A negative relationship between family attachment and problem behaviors has been demonstrated (Galaif et al, 2007). For late adolescent males more than late adolescent females, less family support was related to alcohol involvement (Locke & Newcomb, 2003). Low levels of shyness have been associated with substance use (Santesso, Schmidt & Fox, 2004) and tobacco smoking leading to cannabis use (Creemer et al, 2009); whereas, Kellam, Ensminger, and Simon (1980) indicated that moderate to severe shyness was associated with lower cannabis use.…”

“…Department of Health & Human Services [USDHHS] 2009). Cigarette use by youth began to decline in the late 1990s, with the rate of decline slowing between 2003(CDC, 2010d, but continues to be unacceptably high (Park et al, 2008). Male adolescents, more than female adolescents, smoke before the age of 13 and smoke more often (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), 2009a).…”