Drug culture expertise and substance use

This study concerns the relationship between knowledge of drug culture and substance use. Results from a sample of 2,635 middle and high school students indicate that (1) knowledge of drug culture is positively correlated with substance use; (2) drug knowledge is more reliable and coherent in older youth; (3) drug knowledge is unrelated to other kinds of knowledge acquired in school; (4) youth exposed to peers' substance use in school have more drug knowledge; and (5) the earlier young people begin using drugs and alcohol, the more they know about the drug culture. Results suggest that knowledge of the drug culture may be an unobtrusive indicator of substance use problems.This project was made possible by a grant from the Tulsa Psychiatric Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include school dropouts, substance use, delinquency, identity, narcissism, and health. To whom correspondence should be addressed.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include school dropouts, substance use, delinquency, personal commitments, identity, narcissism, and health.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include moral development and personality.     

Depression,Suicidal Ideation,and Substance Use Among Continuation High School Students

This study examines the structural relationships among depression, suicidal ideation, gateway substance use (including cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana), and hard substance use (including cocaine, stimulants, and inhalants) in a sample of continuation high school students at high risk for drug abuse. When the model was examined separately by ethnic group (Latino and Caucasian) and gender, significant differences among the factor correlations emerged. Compared to Latinos and females, Caucasians and males, respectively, demonstrated a greater number of significant relationships among the factors. For Latinos and females, only the depression and suicidal ideation factors were significantly correlated with each other, as were the gateway and hard substance use factors. For Caucasians and males, four of the six factors were significantly intercorrelated. One implication is that mood enhancement may be a particularly important reason for hard substance use among Caucasian and male adolescents.     

Sexual problems found in users of a student mental health clinic

The authors were interested in discovering the spectrum and prevalence of sexual problems among young adults. With this goal in mind, they devised a Sexual Problems Check List as a comprehensive instrument utilizable by both clinicians and researchers. The Sexual Problems Check List was derived by reviewing therapists' treatment summaries and 146 recent answers to applications written by patients themselves as the first step in applying for treatment at a university mental health clinic. Data were then obtained from 52 subsequent student mental health clinic patients; such patients were selected as the sample because they were late adolescents and young adults thought likely to exhibit a broad range of clinically significant probelms. General patterns of concerns were noted which indicated that the sexual revolution has not been as liberating as the respondents were led to believe.Received his M. D. from Yale University School of Medicine in 1963. Psychiatric Residency at Yale, 1964–1967. Main interests include psychiatry residency training, psychoanalytic study of peotry, student mental health.Receved his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1971. Psychiatric Residency at University of Chicago, 1972–1975. Main interests include hospital psychiatry and group treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.Received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1968. Main interests include urban problems, socialization, and deviance.     

Self-esteem and delinquency revisited

A recent investigation by Rosenberg and Rosenberg used longitudinal data from the Youth in Transition study to explore the causal relationships between delinquency and self-esteem. The present study is based on the same sample of young men in high school and extends Rosenberg and Rosenberg's analysis, first by using the same cross-lagged correlation methods applied over a longer time period, and then by employing a causal modeling approach using the LISREL computer program. Each of the analyses was carried out using the total sample as well as two subsamples, the highest and lowest quartiles in initial self-esteem. The causal modeling analyses attempted (a) to take careful account of the actual periods referenced by the measures of delinquency and self-esteem, (b) to control socioeconomic status and ability, and (c) to extend the model to demonstrate ways in which participation in teenage social life and current educational attainment might also influence and be influenced by self-esteem. The analyses suggest that self-esteem plays little part in influencing the teenage behaviors and orientations that follow in time. Consistent with Kaplan's prediction, among young men who enter high school with low self-esteem, the effects of delinquent behavior tend primarily to be self-enhancing.This research was supported by an Open University Research Grant awarded to John Bynner while a Fulbright-Hays Scholar at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.Completed his first degree in Psychology at the University of Bristol and his doctorate at the University of London. Main research interests are adolescent values and research methodology.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Main research interests are youth and social issues and developmental psychology.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Main research interest are studies of youth and social issues.     

Implicit theories of intelligence and self-perceptions of academically talented adolescents and children

Beliefs about intelligence can vary from the view that it is stable to the view that it is unstable. Third through eleventh grade academically talented students (n =153) rated their beliefs on the stability of intelligence using a 6-point Likert scale. They also rated themselves on similar scales for how smart and hardworking they thought they were, and how much they liked hard tasks. Students' views of the stability of intelligence paralleled a normal distribution, with almost one-half having borderline views that can be easily modified to match environmental demands. Approximately 9% of these talented students were at risk for underachievement based on their self-perceptions of relatively low ability and the belief that intelligence is stable. High school students believed intelligence was more stable than elementary students and females described themselves as being harder workers than males. Findings may account for the differing academic experiences and performance of academically talented students over time.Received Ph.D. in Psychology from University of Maryland Baltimore County. Research interests include self-perceptions, achievement, motivation, metacognition, and family factors that contribute to the development of academic talent.Received Ph.D. in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include gender differences, cognitive styles, and exceptional ability. Her other interests include gifted-learning disabled students and international education.     

Sex differences in patterns of self-disclosure among adolescents: A developmental perspective

The purpose of this study is to explore relationships among sex, target, and aspects of adolescent self-disclosure. An adaptation of the Journal and Lasakow (1958) Self-Disclosure Questionnaire (SDQ) was administered to 97 secondary school volunteers with same-sex friend and opposite-sex friend as specified targets. SDQ scores were obtained for a stratified random sample of 30 Ss matched with volunteers for school, grade, age, and sex. Results indicated no sex differences in total disclosure; Ss disclosed differentially to same-sex and opposite-sex friend. Female same-sex disclosure was greater than male same-sex disclosure. A high disclosure cluster for females was Tastes and Interests and Personality; for males it was Tastes and Interests, Work (Studies), and Attitudes and Opinions. These findings reflect patterns for volunteers and nonvolunteers, suggesting that volunteering was not a factor in obtained outcomes. Sex differences in aspects of disclosure are discussed in terms of sex-role variations in establishment of ego identity.The larger study from which the data under discussion were drawn is entitled Cognitive Self-Modeling, Conventional Group Counselling and Change in Interpersonal Communication Skills. Two co-investigators were involved in the study—J. G. Schachter and W. E. Reitz. In addition, research assistance was provided throughout the study by K. H. Hough. A detailed summary of all demographic data is available upon request from the author.(King's College is affiliated with the University of Western Ontario.) Received Ph.D. from The Institute for Child Study, University of Maryland. Main interests are child development and counseling.     

Female adolescents of alcohol misusers 1: Sexual behaviors

Studies show that children of alcoholics constitute an at-risk population. This study attempted to understand the impact of parental alcohol misuse on sexual behaviors of female adolescents, based on a sample of 1134 teenagers from alcohol misusing parents in Minnesota. Index adolescents were more likely to report having sexual intercourse as well as greater frequency of intercourse, history of pregnancy and greater overall pregnancy risk based on current patterns of sexual behavior and contraceptive utilization. Bivariate analysis revealed that gender of the drinking parent was also associated with the above variables. However, in multivariate assessment of protective and risk factors for adolescent pregnancy in the at-risk sample, maternal vs. paternal vs. both parents drinking was no longer salient. Pregnancy avoidance was associated in the index group with two-parent family structure and higher maternal education, while pregnancy history was associated with a history of physical abuse and perception of high levels of vandalism in the school setting.The study reported in this article did not utilize clinically diagnostic indicators of alcoholism. Hence the authors have deliberately avoided using the word alcoholics when referring to parents of study participants. The terms alcohol misusers and alcohol abusers have been substituted and are used interchangeably.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. Research interests include identifying resilience factors in populations that are considered at risk and the usefulness of these factors in planning social welfare programs.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. Research interests include children with chronic illness and disabilities, adolescent sexual decision making and international adolescent health care issues.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. Research focuses on adolescent high-risk behaviors and resiliency, and interested in the translation of social research into social action, programs, and policy.     

An attempt to detect “pregnancy susceptibility” in indigent adolescent girls

Programs for widespread dissemination of birth control information and devices among adolescents are subject to strong resistance from many groups and may be ineffective anyway. An alternative approach to reducing the alarming frequency of unplanned pregnancy among unmarried adolescents might be group or individual counseling for those most susceptible, to unplanned pregnancies. Accurate identification would be necessary to implement this alternative. Developed in this paper is an inferential strategy for identifying in well-defined groups unmarried adolescents who seem susceptible. When carefully evaluated, an inferential strategy, based, on several concepts from Bayesian inference theory, appears remarkably accurate as a means of identification. Besides specific predicReceived her M. A. in education and Ph.D. in psychology at University of Houston. Main interest was adult development. Deceased in 1971.Received his M.D. from Baylor Pediatric internship and residency at University of Michigan Hospital. Main interest is adult development.Received his Ph.D. in psychology at Ohio State University. Main interest is probability (decision) theory.Received her Ph.D. in educational psychology at University of Texas in Austin. Main interest is adult development.Received from M.D. Johns Hopkins, School of Medicine. Main interest is obstetrics and gynecology.Received her M.A. in English at Southern Methodist University. Main interest is research communications.     

Work and leisure relationships: An exploration of life possibilities during adolescence

This study explored the relationship between leisure preferences and work/occupational aspiration for adolescents in Singapore and Australia. Three hypothesized relationships between the domains of spillover, compensation, and segmentation were investigated. Except for females in the Australian sample, it appeared that adolescents saw leisure preferences and occupational aspirations as two independent spheres of their personal futures, supporting the segmentation hypothesis.Received Ph.D. from La Trobe. Research interests include adolescence and youth.Received Ph.D. from University of Sydney. Research interests include longitudinal data analysis.     

Son of joe: Continuity and change among white working class adolescents

The present article focuses upon the much-neglected topic of white working class youth — the children of another other America. Based upon the available literature as well as upon a recent program of ethnographic research, the institutional settings — community, family, school — within which working class youth grow up are examined with particular emphasis on their climate and values. Attention is paid to the heterogeneity contained within this segment of the population pointing to four distinct types: collegians, greasers, hippies, and those encapsulated in family life. The article points to factors that promote a potential increase in residential social class homogeneity that, in turn, promotes class values, social and personal expectations, and modal relationships that increasingly diverge from the norms of an urban-industrial middle class society and that in considerable measure either contribute to a growing conservative alienation from the larger society or make adjustments to that society more problematic for its youth. The emergent picture of white working youth in part resembles that of youth in general, but in a more significant measure is much different from that found in either higher or lower social strata.This research was supported by USPHS-NIH Contract 70-511 and USPHS-NICHD Grant No. 04156.Received Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Research interests include post childhood socialization, social change and deviance, and urban social studies.Received Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Main research interest is social change and deviance.Candidate for Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University. Main research interests are social stratification, youth, and social change in an industrial society.     

“I've got a lot to do and i don't think i'll have the time”: Gender differences in late adolescents' narratives of the future

The present study examined gender differences in late adolescents' future narratives.Thirty-nine male and 43 female late adolescents (M=20.01 years) completed 90-minute individual interviews assessing dimensional and thematic aspects of the future narrative as well as psychological profile characteristics (abstract reasoning, psychological distress, self-concept, and self-esteem). As predicted, gender differences emerged in the anticipation and projected timing of adulthood transition events. More females than males anticipated marriage and parenthood; females also anticipated younger ages at marriage and parenthood than males. Examination of adolescents' narratives of the life course beyond the adulthood transition revealed greater extensionoverall among males than females. No gender differences in extension or densitywere obtained for the anticipated occupational domain, and no gender differences were obtained in extension in the family domain. Female adolescents, however, anticipated more events in the family domain than did males. The findings are discussed in terms of the implicit theories of adulthood that inform adolescents' future narratives.This research was supported, in part, by a grant awarded to the first author by the National Science Foundation (Differential Perceptions of the Family Environment).Received Ph.D. from Boston University in Developmental Psychology. Research interests include future narratives, self-perception, and cognition.Research interests include cognition, schema theory, and gender.     

Relationship of Parenting Style to Behavioral Adjustment in Graduating High School Seniors

Research on the four prototypic parenting styles has consistently demonstrated their relationship to psychosocial and behavioral adjustment in offspring ranging in age from preschool children to high school students. The present study used self-report surveys administered only to graduating high school (HS) seniors (2250 participants). Students indicated their levels of participation in a variety of problem behaviors and conventional behaviors, as well as rating their perceptions of their parents on three parenting dimensions: acceptance (responsiveness), behavioral control (demandingness), and democracy (psychological autonomy granting). Using these values, students could be assigned to 1 of 6 groups representing the parenting style with which they perceived they had been reared: authoritative plus, authoritative, authoritarian, midrange, indulgent, and neglectful. Parenting style was significantly related to older adolescent behavioral adjustment (p < .0001) in this HS Sr. sample even after statistically adjusting for the effects of gender, SES, and family structure. While parenting style did not moderate socioeconomic status and family structure, it was found to be a powerful mediator of these two independent variables. The democracy dimension, although an important component of parental attitude, was found to be unnecessary in effectively defining authoritative parenting after the other two dimensions, acceptance and behavioral control, were considered. This study expands the parenting style typology to include a fifth middle-range parenting style, and it demonstrates the significant mediating power of parenting style on SES and family structure. Previously established advantages and disadvantages of the four classic parenting styles, plus a middle-range style, persist even when they are extended to a sample comprised strictly of older adolescents at the brink of high school graduation.     

Sex differences in the resolution of the identity crisis

Based on Erikson's view of the importance of inner space in feminine identity, researchers have added an interview on premarital sex to the standard ego identity interview on occupation, religion, and politics used for males. This study was designed to investigate the relative importance of premarital sexual ideology for males and females, as well as sex differences in identity status on occupation, religion, and politics. Marcia's semi-structured ego identity status interview was given to 70 male and 70 female college students, with premarital sex questions included for both sexes. Consistent with Erikson's theory, females were more likely than males to have experienced a sexual identity crisis, whereas males were very likely to be foreclosed in this area. Males as well as females were more likely to be committed about sex than about any other area. In all areas except sex, female identity followed basically the same pattern as male identity.Received her Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo. Current research interests are ego identity and human sexuality.Received his Ph. D. from State University of New York at Albany. Current research interests are mental health evaluation and behavior therapy.     

Sex differences in the identity formation of college students from divorced families

This study was desgined to examine gender differences in identity formation in late adolescents from divorced mother-custody families. Fifty-seven female and thirty-nine male college students ranging in age from 17 to 25 years completed the Child's Report of Parental Behavior [E. S. Schaeffer (1965) Children's Reports of Parental Behavior: An Inventory, Child Development, Vol. 36, pp. 412–482] and were interviewed using the J. E. Marcia [(1966) Development and Validation of Ego Identity Status, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 3, pp. 551–558] semistructured Identity Status Interview. While no differences between males and females were found in ratings of overall identity status, significantly more females were in the achieved category within the domains of occupation and attitudes toward premarital sex. Also, males perceived their mothers as significantly more accepting and less controlling than did females. The absence of the father and the altered role of the mother appear to have a differential impact on males and females who have grown up in mother-custody families. Implications of these and other findings are discussed.Received Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Teachers College Columbia University. Research interests include adolescent identity formation, the intersection and integration of personal and career counseling, and career development.     

Acting out of character: Window on the identity crisis

An autobiographical account of acting out of character at a life turning point is presented as a window on a young person's identity crisis. Analysis of that account reveals (1) that the play of the tentative identities reflects the concurrent crisis in the character of that person's society, (2) that the story the person now has to tell sets forth the range of the psychosocial issues active in his life, (3) that the mysteries generated identify for the person the specific issues at crisis, (4) that the novelty of the event itself catalyzes called for changes, and (5) that the metaphor of the out of character actions serves to preview the ultimate resolution.Received M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, in 1964, and psychiatry training at Yale. Interests lie in the area of psychotherapy with disturbed youth, careers of young people who become psychiatric aides in mental hospitals, and group homes for adolescents.     

Adolescent maturational changes and psychosocial development: A dynamic interactional perspective

Models of reciprocal biological-psychosocial relations may be quite usefully studied in adolescence. This period of life represents a natural laboratory for assessing these relations, and may be an ideal sample case illustrating their role in life-span development. In this article a dynamic interactional model of these relations is described and evaluated. This model stresses that on the basis of his or her characteristics of individuality (e.g., bodily characteristics that result from his/her maturational status), an adolescent will evoke differential reactions in his/her socializing others; these reactions will feed back to the adolescent and influence his/her further development. The nature of the feedback (e.g., its positive or negative valence) will depend on the goodness of fit between the adolescent's individual characteristics and the demands (e.g., the preferences, expectations, values, or behaviors) of significant others (e.g., parents, peers, teachers). The model is evaluated in regard to its use in understanding data pertinent to the role of characteristics of physical individuality in adolescent development. Conclusions pertain to the importance of studying the processes by which adolescents, and particularly early adolescents, attain good fits with their contexts.The preparation of this article was supported in part by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and from the William T. Grant Foundation.     

A six-year follow-up study of anorexia nervosa subjects with teenage onset

Fifty-one adolescent onset anorexia nervosa (AN) cases recruited after community screening were compared with fifty-one age-, sex- and schoolmatched cases with regard to comorbidity and personality disorders at age 21 years. All 102 cases had originally been examined at a mean age of 16 years. Outcome according to the Morgan-Russell scales was fairly similar to that reported in recent clinic-based samples. Most of the former AN cases were recovered in respect of weight but outcome in social areas was restricted. Obsessive compulsive and avoidant personality disorders and empathy disorders were very much more common in the AN than in the comparison group. Obsessive compulsive behaviors showed a high degree of stability over time and were unrelated to weight problems. Together with empathy disorders they tended to predict outcome better than the eating disorder as such. Affective disorders were common but tended to follow the course of the eating disorder rather than precede or postdate it.Received Ph.D. on Anorexia Nerevosa in Swedish Urban Teenagers at Göteborg University in 1990. Major research interests concern the epidemiology and background factors of eating disorder.Received Ph.D. in 1981 at the University of Uppsala on Neuropsychiatric aspects of perceptual, motor, and attentional deficits in seven-year-old Swedish children. Major research interests are autism, Asperger syndrome, anorexia nervosa, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, mental retardation, lefthandedness, and behavioral phenotypes.Received Ph.D. in 1987 at The University of Uppsala on Deficits in Attention, Motor Control and Perception: Follow-Up from Pre-School to Early Teens. Her major research interests concern attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.     

Gender/Racial Differences in Jock Identity,Dating, and Adolescent Sexual Risk

Despite recent declines in overall sexual activity, sexual risk-taking remains a substantial danger to US youth. Existing research points to athletic participation as a promising venue for reducing these risks. Linear regressions and multiple analyses of covariance were performed on a longitudinal sample of nearly 600 Western New York adolescents in order to examine gender- and race-specific relationships between jock identity and adolescent sexual risk-taking, including age of sexual onset, past-year and lifetime frequency of sexual intercourse, and number of sexual partners. After controlling for age, race, socioeconomic status, and family cohesion, male jocks reported more frequent dating than nonjocks but female jocks did not. For both genders, athletic activity was associated with lower levels of sexual risk-taking; however, jock identity was associated with higher levels of sexual risk-taking, particularly among African American adolescents. Future research should distinguish between subjective and objective dimensions of athletic involvement as factors in adolescent sexual risk.Research Scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions of the University at Buffalo. Received PhD in sociology from the University at Buffalo. Research interests include adolescent athletic involvement, gender, race, and health-risk behavior, particularly substance use.Department Chair and Professor of Sociology at the University at Buffalo. Received PhD in sociology from Yale University. Research interests include the effects of families, friendships, and organizational participation on adolescent development and substance use.Senior Research Scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions of the University at Buffalo. Received PhD in sociology from the University at Buffalo. Research interests include family influences on adolescent substance use, gambling, and other problem behaviors.Professor of Physical Education and Sport at SUNY College at Brockport. Received PhD in physical education from Ohio State University. Research interests include the sociology of sport, social psychology of sport, sport group dynamics, and sport spectatorship/fandom.Professor of Sociology at DYouville College. Received PhD in sociology from the University at Buffalo. Research interests include the sociology of sport, gender, and mens health.     

Temperament and social support in adolescence: Interrelations with depressive symptoms and delinquent behaviors

This study investigated the interrelations between temperament, perceived family and friend support, and depressive symptoms and delinquent activity with a sample of 975 adolescents (¯xage=15.5 years). A difficult temperament index was devised, and manifested significant associations with depressive symptoms and delinquency, as well as with low family and friend support. Moderator and mediator variable models were specified via hierarchical multiple regression equations and path analyses, respectively. There was little support for the moderator variable models; partial support was garnered for the mediational models, indicating that part of the influence of temperamental difficulty on depression and delinquency may be attributable to reduced levels of perceived family and friend support. However, temperamental difficulty also significantly predicted depression and delinquency directly, over and above its indirect influences via perceived family and friend support. The findings were similar for males and females as indicated by simultaneous group structural equation models.This research was supported by NIAAA Grant No. 07861 awarded to the authorReceived a Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Major research interests involve the identification of high-risk factors for adolescent substance use and other problem behaviors.     

The effects of pubertal timing on body image,school behavior,and deviance

Variation in the timing of pubertal maturation may result in behavioral differences among early, mid-, and late maturers. Using data from the National Health Examination Survey, a national probability sample of children and youth aged 12–17, we investigated the relationships between maturational timing and body image, school behavior, and deviance. In terms of body image, the early maturing boys were the group most satisfied with height and weight. The early maturing girls were most dissatisfied with weight, with 69% wishing to be thinner. This great dissatisfaction with weight reported by early maturing girls is probably not an affect of early maturation, but a concomitant of maturation in general. The majority of girls became dissatisfied with their weight as they matured, and females from the higher social groups were more likely to want to be thinner than females from lower groups. Thus, a normal developmental process is being viewed negatively by females and positively by males. Male early maturers more often had deviant behavior, but there were no consistent findings for girls. There was no effect of maturational timing on teacher reports of school absence, adjustment, popularity, need for discipline, or grade repetition.This research was supported by the Stanford Center for the Study of Youth Development and by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.Received M.D. from The Medical College of Pennsylvania.Received Ph.D. in anthropology from Stanford University.Received Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.Received M.D. from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University.