Social Influences on Addiction 2

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Sumter et al. (2009)

Peer pressure (or social isolation) can be an important contributing factor to the use of drugs or alcohol. Sumter et al. (2009) showed how peer pressure decreases as adolescents mature and get older.

Method

They gave a questionnaire that asked questions regarding peer pressure to 464 adolescents and children.
The questionnaire determined how resistant to peer pressure the children were.
The questions were written in a specific style to make sure that they were suitable for all ages.
The questionnaire used every day hypothetical situations to assess their resistance.

Results

The older the adolescents, the more likely they were able to resist peer pressure.
The younger children were more susceptible to peer pressure, judged by the way they answered the questions.

Conclusions

The older and more mature an adolescent becomes, the less vulnerable to peer pressure they are.
This could potentially account for why substance abuse is more likely to have long-term effects when a person is exposed at a younger age.

Evaluation

This was not a longitudinal study, which would have been better at assessing the same individual’s ability to resist peer pressure as they got older.
But longitudinal studies are more difficult and expensive, so it would have taken longer to collect data.

Individual differences

The study was cross-sectional and so could not account for individual differences.
It could be that some children, no matter their age, are more or less vulnerable to peer pressure than the norm.

Two way

It is important to point out that peer pressure does not only exert a negative influence on adolescents.
If their peers do not participate in drug or alcohol use, then a teen is less likely to as well.
So peer pressure can be positive.
The study did not discuss this.

Family Influence on Addiction

Family influence is a risk factor which can lead to addictive behaviour. There are several studies that examine the effects of the family environment on the development of addictions.

Christiansen et al. (1982)

Christiansen et al. (1982) looked at the expectancies of alcohol.
An individual’s expectancies are altered as they have personal experiences with alcohol.
The expectancies change from general ones to more specific ones.

Expectancies

Children have expectancies regarding alcohol.
- For example, it will make me feel good.
But they become more crystallised as they experience alcohol themselves.
- Sometimes, alcohol can make me feel worse.
This supports the idea that to improve adult drinking problems, they must begin with children.

Adesso (1985)

Another study by Adesso (1985) made conclusions that supported the social learning theory.
Children learn about alcohol expectancies by looking at family, friends and other role models.
People learn behaviour through imitation and this is also true of drinking behaviour.

Baer et al. (1987)

Finally, Baer et al. (1987) found that negative reinforcement use of alcohol is common in adolescents.
Negative reinforcement is using a substance or completing a behaviour to get rid of something undesirable.
In other words, they use alcohol as a way of dealing with family conflict or other stressful life events.
The younger these behaviours are learnt, the more likely they are to continue into adulthood.

Causality

It is important to note that this was a correlation study.
Again, the cause-and-effect relationship between family conflict and alcohol use was not definitively established.
It is possible that some people may experience more family conflict when they drink more alcohol.