Abstract
Problem Behavior Theory, consisting of personality, perceived environment, and behavior systems, was employed to account for variation in marijuana use among junior high, senior high, and college students, both male and female. The research design enabled both cross-sectional comparisons between nonusers and users on variables in each of the systems and longitudinal comparisons between those who shifted to user status over a 1-year interval and those who remained nonusers. Data revealed a similar pattern of personality, environment, and behavior differences between all nonuser and user groups, suggesting a pervasive social-psychological constancy. The same variables were also predictive of the shift from nonuse to use over time among the high school students but not the college students.
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Jessor, R., Jessor, S. L., & Finney, J. (1973). A social psychology of marijuana use: Longitudinal studies of high school and college youth. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26(1), 1–15.
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Notes
- 1.
Although persistent follow-up efforts were made to gain the cooperation of the 2220 subjects initially designated, the fact that parental permission was a necessity and the fact that participation required remaining after school for 1½ hours or so on a spring afternoon both contributed to the lower than desirable initial percentage of participation. The fact that only 42% of the originally designated random sample of students ultimately participated in the research means that findings on the starting cohort cannot be generalized back with confidence as descriptive of the school population. While this limitation is unfortunate, it does not in any way preclude the testing of hypotheses nor does it diminish the significance of developmental analyses of the starting cohort itself.
- 2.
An examination was made of the various groups considered in this paper in terms of age and of background or social origin variables, including father’s education, father’s occupation, and fundamentalism of father’s religious group. There were no significant differences on any of these measures for the junior high or the senior high groups, male or female. In the college study, the heavily involved males (MBR score = 8) came from families with fathers significantly higher in education and lower in religious fundamentalism; however, they were not higher in occupational level. None of the college female differences were significant. Given the overall commonality of demographic background variables, they were not considered useful for inclusion in any further analyses.
- 3.
It is of interest to note that a 1968 survey, at the same university, of the entire student body, including graduate students, reported a rate of only 32% of the respondents having used marijuana (Mizner, Barter, & Werme, 1970).
- 4.
In both the high school and the college studies, the average Pearson intercorrelation among these seven predictors was .20, with the highest correlation being about .45 and the lowest being about .00. In the high school study, the highest correlation of a personality measure with the MBR scale was that for independence-achievement value discrepancy, .38; the highest correlation of a perceived environment measure with the MBR scale was that for social support for drugs, .65. For the college study, the best personality correlation with MBR was for social criticism, .44; the best environmental correlation was again social support for drugs, .66. Since the sets of personality and perceived environment measures are themselves correlated substantially, their combination in a multiple correlation is not likely to increase the correlation with the MBR criterion much above the R of the perceived environment measures alone.
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Jessor, R., Jessor, S.L., Finney, J. (2017). Marijuana Use in High School and College. In: Problem Behavior Theory and Adolescent Health . Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51349-2_8
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