Project Towards No Drug Abuse: A Review of the Findings and Future Directions

Objective: To provide a review of the evidence from 3 experimental trials of Project Towards No Drug Abuse (TND), a senior high-school-based drug abuse prevention program.Methods: Theoretical concepts, subjects, designs, hypotheses, findings, and conclusions of these trials are presented. A total of 2,468 high school youth from 42 schools in southern California were surveyed.Results: The Project TND curriculum shows reductions in the use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, hard drugs, weapon carrying, and victimization. Most of these results were replicated across the 3 trials. Conclusion: Project TND is an effective drug and violence prevention program for older teens, at least for one year follow-up

Exposure to Televised Alcohol Ads and Subsequent Adolescent Alcohol Use

Objective: To assess the impact of televised alcohol commercials on adolescents, alcohol use. Methods: Adolescents completed questionnaires about alcohol commercials and alcohol use in a prospective study. Results: A one standard deviation increase in viewing television programs containing alcohol commercials in seventh grade was associated with an excess risk of beer use (44%}, wine/liquor use (34%}, and 3-drlnk episodes (26%} in eighth grade. The strength of associations varied across exposure measures and was most consistent for beer. Conclusions: Although replication is warranted, results showed that exposure was associated with an increased risk of subsequent beer consumption and possibly other consumption variables

Cognitive Motivations and Sensation Seeking as Long-Term Predictors of Drinking Problems

The development of comprehensive theories regarding the determinants ofvulnerability toward drinking problems depends in part on longitudinal evidencelinking psychosocial precursors to clinically-relevant problem consequences. Inan investigation of some of the more promising psychosocial precursors ofproblem vulnerability, we evaluated the long-term predictive effects of adolescentcognitive motivations for alcohol use and sensation seeking on a wide variety ofadult drinking-problem consequences including driving while intoxicated (DWI).Results indicated that the Cognitive Motivation factor was a significant, independent, nine-year predictor of a factor of Drinking-Problem Consequences. Over this same period, certain cognitive motivation and sensation seeking indicators independently predicted DWI, and the Sensation Seeking factor independently predicted Cognitive Motivation and Alcohol Use factors. The significant, independent effects on problem-drinking variables demonstrated that psychosocial vulnerability appeared across a range of consumption levels. These findings have important implications for counseling practices and the identification of teenagers of high-risk for drinking problems and DWI in later adulthood

Interactive and Higher-Order Effects of Social Influences on Drug Use

The study of moderators and higher-order effects of social influences on drug use has many implications for theories of health behavior. In the present study, we investigated the longitudinal predictive effects of some of the prominent moderator variables that represent forms of susceptibility toward social influence in teenage drug use. We also studied the possibility that social influence may predict drug use in nonlinear (quadratic) forms, consistent with theories proposing that threshold or decelerating effects may occur in social influences on normatively sanctioned behaviors. Results showed that several of the interactive and quadratic predictive effects were significant. The findings supported the views that certain moderator variables act as buffers, which either protect the individual from social pressures to use drugs, or make the individual more susceptible to such pressures. In addition, two of the obtained quadratic effects of social influence lent support to the application of social impact theory to drug use. Overall, our findings suggest that interactive and nonlinear approaches to social influences on drug use provide a unique and viable theoretical perspective from which to construe this problem health behavior

Construct Validity of Dimensions of Adaptive Behavior: A Multitrait-Multimethod Evaluation.

The construct validity of four dimensions of adaptive and maladaptive behavior was investigated using the multitrait-multimethod matrix procedure of Campbell and Fiske (1959). Measures off our traits cognitive competence, social competence, social maladaption, and personal maladaption were obtained on a sample of 157 persons with moderate, severe, or profound mental retardation using each of three methods of measurement-standardized assessment instrument, day shift staff ratings, and evening shift staff ratings. Applying the Campbell and Fiske rules of thumb and recently proposed structural equation modeling techniques to the data demonstrated strong convergent validity, clear discriminant validity, and only moderate levels of method variance in the observed measures. implications of the results for the assessment of adaptive behavior and its dimensional structure were discussed

Psychosocial Variables as Prospective Predictors of Violent Events Among Adolescents

Violent events are main causes of mortality among children and include intentional (e.g., homicide) and unintentional (e.g., accidents) circumstances. This study investigated the prediction of the self-reported occurrence of 14 violent events among eighth-grade youth from psychosocial variables measured in these same youth in seventh grade. Psychosocial variables ineluded tobacco and alcohol use, demographic variables, interpersonal variables such as family conflict, and intrapersonal variables such as risk taking. An iterative procedure, involving selection of a set of predictors and a test of the correlation of the set of predictors to the set of events, provided support for an extension of problem behavior theory to violent events

Impulsivity, Impulsive and Reflective Processes and the Development of Alcohol Use and Misuse in Adolescents and Young Adults

This paper contrasts dual-process and personality approaches in the prediction of addictive behaviors and related risk behaviors. In dual-process models, behavior is described as the joint outcome of qualitatively different “impulsive” (or associative) and “reflective” processes. There are important individual differences regarding both types of processes, and the relative strength of both in a specific situation is influenced by prior behavior and state variables (e.g., fatigue, alcohol use). From this perspective, a specific behavior (e.g., alcohol misuse) can be predicted by the combined indices of the behavior-related impulsive processes (e.g., associations with alcohol), and reflective processes, including the ability to refrain from a motivationally salient action. Personality approaches have reported that general traits such as impulsivity predict addictive behaviors. Here we contrast these two approaches, with supplementary analyses on four datasets. We hypothesized that trait impulsivity can predict specific risky behaviors, but that its predictive power disappears once specific behavior-related associations, indicators of executive functioning, and their interaction are entered into the equation. In all four studies the observed interaction between specific associations and executive control (EC) was robust: trait impulsivity did not diminish the prediction of alcohol use by the interaction. Trait impulsivity was not always related to alcohol use, and when it was, the predictive power disappeared after entering the interaction between behavior-specific associations and EC in one study, but not in the other. These findings are interpreted in relation to the validity of the measurements used, which leads to a more refined hypothesis

One-Year Prospective Prediction of Violence Perpetration Among High Risk Youth from Personal and Social-Environmental Variables

Objective: Measures of drug use, law-abidance beliefs, sensation seeking, fear of victimization, high-risk group identification, self- protection needs and behaviors, and demographics were investigated as longitudinal predictors of violence perpetration among 870 high-risk adolescents. Method: Self-reports from the same youth were obtained 1-year apart. Results: In addition to baseline violence perpetration, marijuana use, relatively youn1 age, male sex, high-risk group self-identification, low perceived efficacy of the police department, and nonavoidance of dangerous places predicted later perpetrated violence. Conclusion: Personal and social factors beyond baseline violent behavior predict risk for future violent behavior

Identification of Which High Risk Youth Smoke Cigarettes Regularly

This study investigated which variables distinguish high school-aged adolescents who identify themselves as members of a high-risk group and, among them, those who report regular (weekly) vs. light levels of cigarette smoking. Youth who identified with a high-risk group were most likely to report problem-prone characteristics, such as a preference to take risks and smoke cigarettes. Yet, only half of them reported regular levels of smoking. Two variables delineated light smoking among these youth: not having a close friend who smoked and placing an importance on health as a value. Development of new tobacco-use prevention strategies to impart health values is suggested

Content Analysis of Drug Offenders\u27 Sketches on the Draw-an-Event Test for Risky Sexual Situations

Objectives: To evaluate the utility of the Draw-an-Event Test for risky sexual situations (DET-RS), a nonverbal memory-based assessment tool used for productions of spontaneous content associated with risky sex. Methods: Traditional holistic coding analysis of 298 drug offenders\u27 content productions. Results: Content analyses of DET-RS sketches provided increased understanding of substance use and other context preceding risky sexual situations with different types of sex partners. None of the sketches including drugs depleted condoms, only one of the sketches with alcohol included a condom, and only 2 sketches mentioned sexually transmitted diseases. Conclusions: The DET-RS is a useful research tool for generating nonverbal context-specific stimuli associated with risky sexual situations