The purpose of the proposed research is to examine the role of adolescent attachments and autonomy in the development of adolescent alcohol consumption patterns, with a particular focus on the differential prediction of normative and problem drinking. Two studies of 9th through 12th graders from a large, metropolitan school district will be conducted. In each study, students will be followed longitudinally for two years completing annual or biannual questionnaires assessing parent and peer attachment, autonomy, susceptibility to peer pressure, conventionality of the adolescent and his/her peers, parental restrictiveness and independence training, family structure, and adolescent drinking attitudes, motivations, and behaviors. The tri-ethnic sample will include students representing a wide range of social class backgrounds and will be made up roughly of equal numbers of Black, Hispanic, and White students. The first study is devoted to the development of instruments equivalent across cultures and procedures to maximize participation and completion in the second and larger study. Besides providing a wealth of descriptive information on the developmental course and correlates of various patterns of adolescent drinking, the study will test specific hypotheses about the relationship between adolescent social/emotional development and the nature and development of adolescent drinking patterns. Specifically, it is predicted that a) three rather distinct patterns of adolescent drinking will be identified that correspond to family, social, and problem drinking, and b) these three patterns will have different correlates. Adolescents with strong attachments to nonconventional peers are expected to show the most social drinking, whereas adolescents with poor parent attachments are expected to show the most problem drinking. Adolescent autonomy is expected to show a complex relationship with adolescent drinking, predicting developmental changes in social drinking among adolescents with secure parent and peer attachments, and predicting problem drinking among adolescents with insecure attachments. Individual growth models will be used to examine developmental changes in these constructs and their relationships with changes in alcohol consumption. Similarities and differences within and between ethnic and social class groups will also be examined, including a consideration of the effects of acculturation on consumption patterns.
| Power, Thomas G; Stewart, Cynthia D; Hughes, Sheryl O et al. (2005) Predicting patterns of adolescent alcohol use: a longitudinal study. J Stud Alcohol 66:74-81 |
| Stewart, Cindy; Power, Thomas G (2002) Identifying patterns of adolescent drinking: a tri-ethnic study. J Stud Alcohol 63:156-68 |
