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Social Goals Impact Adolescent Substance Use through Influencing Adolescents’ Connectedness to Their Schools

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Abstract

Although developmental models of risk behavior highlight the role of school connectedness in the etiology of adolescent substance use, no studies to our knowledge have assessed longitudinal mediational models examining how adolescents form bonds to their school, and how the quality of those bonds relate to substance use. To address this gap, the current study used four waves of data, spanning ages 11–16 (grades 5–11), to examine the association between individual differences in agentic (Dominance/Power) and communal (Nurturance/Affiliation) social goals and school connectedness, and in turn, whether levels of school connectedness are associated with substance use. The community sample (N = 387, 55% female) was assessed annually and included non-Hispanic Caucasian (83.1%), African American (9.1%), Hispanic (2.1%), and Asian (1.0%), as well as youth of mixed ethnicity (4.7%). The results supported a mediational pathway whereby agentic goals were associated with low levels of school connectedness, which, in turn, were associated with high levels of substance use. Counter to our hypotheses, no association was found between communal goals and school connectedness. These findings provided initial evidence for the important role social goals play in shaping an adolescent’s connectedness to their school and risk for substance use.

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Notes

  1. Based on work suggesting that school connectedness varies as function of both grade and gender (Johnson et al. 2006; Wang and Dishion 2012), we explored potential moderating effects of these variables in the association between agentic and communal social goals and school connectedness. Interactions between social goals and grade and social goals and gender were not statistically significant (ps > .05). Additionally, some research has suggested that adolescents who are able to both share their opinions and beliefs (high agency) and form close bonds (high communion) with their peers may be best equipped to form strong connections with social institutions (Allen et al. 2002; Allen and Loeb 2015). Based on this work, interactions between agency and communion predicting school connectedness were examined. A significant interaction between agency and communion predicting school connectedness at the first but not second lag was supported (p < .05). However, regression diagnostics suggested two extreme outlying observations, and when these observations were removed, the path from the agency x communion interaction term to W2 school connectedness was no longer statistically significant (p > .15). In sum, we did not find robust support for any of these interaction terms.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA019631) awarded to C.R.C.

Author Contributions

S.N.M. developed the research question, conducted the analysis, and prepared the manuscript. C.R.C. assisted with refining the research question, conducting the data analysis, and preparing the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, 320 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY, 14260-4110, USA

    Samuel N. Meisel

  2. Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, 227 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY, 14260-4110, USA

    Craig R. Colder

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Meisel, S.N., Colder, C.R. Social Goals Impact Adolescent Substance Use through Influencing Adolescents’ Connectedness to Their Schools. J Youth Adolescence 46, 2015–2027 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0655-y

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