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Why do adolescents use drugs? Age, sex, and user differences

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Abstract

This paper makes four points: (1) There is substantial substance use among adolescents in our large rural southwestern sample. (2) Adolescents explain their drug use with five kinds of reasons (i.e., Belonging, Coping, Pleasure, Creativity, and Aggression). (3) Different reasons for using drugs are related to frequency of substance use. (4) There are age, gender, and user differences in the reasons adolescents have for their drug use. After summarizing traditional ways of thinking about drug use, we describe an alternative way for examining such behavior. We use this approach to study relationships between drug use reasons and age, gender, and substance use in 2637 6th–12th-grade students. We then discuss prevention and treatment implications of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tulsa Institute of Behavioral Sciences, 1620East 12th Street, 74120, Tulsa, Oklahoma

    Jill Novacek (Co-Director of Research) & Robert Raskin (Co-Director of Research)

  2. University of Tulsa, USA

    Robert Hogan (MacFarlin Professor and Chair)

Authors
  1. Jill Novacek
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  2. Robert Raskin
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  3. Robert Hogan
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Additional information

Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include school dropouts, substance use, delinqueccy, personal commitments, health, and identity.

Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include at-risk youth, substance use, delinquency, narcissism, and identity.

Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include moral development and personality.

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Novacek, J., Raskin, R. & Hogan, R. Why do adolescents use drugs? Age, sex, and user differences. J Youth Adolescence 20, 475–492 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01540632

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01540632

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