Explaining Adolescent Drug Use in Adjacent Generations

• Date: 01 October 2016
• Published date: 01 October 2016
• DOI: 10.1177/0022042616659758
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal of Drug Issues

2016, Vol. 46(4) 373 –395

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0022042616659758

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Article

Explaining Adolescent Drug Use

in Adjacent Generations: Testing

the Generality of Theoretical

Explanations

Marvin D. Krohn1, Thomas A. Loughran2,

Terence P. Thornberry2, Daniel Wonho Jang2,

Adrienne Freeman-Gallant3, and Erin D. Castro1

Abstract

We tested the assumption that theories of drug use are able to account for behavior across

varying contexts and populations by examining whether control, learning, and elaborated

theories provide similar explanations for adolescent drug use in adjacent generations. We used

data from the Rochester Youth Development Study and Rochester Intergenerational Study

which followed a sample of adolescents starting at age 14 and their oldest biological child. Cross-

generational analysis between theoretical variables measured at age 14 and drug use measured

at approximately ages 15 and 16 were used. Regression models testing for each theoretical

framework found that in general, they appear to operate similarly in adjacent generations. We

conducted 14 tests of equality for pairs of coefficients across the generations; no statistically

significant differences were observed. Overall, these theories offer general explanations for

adolescent drug use with respect to risk and protective factors for parents and their children.

Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

Keywords

drug use, intergenerational, theory testing, theoretical generality

Introduction

One way in which theories of human behavior are evaluated is by assessing their applicability to

different situations, locations, groups, and time periods. Theories that can account for behavior

equally well regardless of the context or population examined are more useful than theories that

are limited in their scope. Moreover, some theoretical perspectives lay claim to being general

theories in that they explicitly suggest that the relationships and causal processes they specify

should apply quite broadly. That is certainly the case with several core theories that are used to

explain adolescent substance use and related problem behaviors. In fact, there have been a

1University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

2University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

3University at Albany, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Marvin D. Krohn, University of Florida, P.O. Box 117330, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.

Email: mkrohn@ufl.edu

659758JODXXX10.1177/0022042616659758Journal of Drug IssuesKrohn et al.

research-article2016

374 Journal of Drug Issues 46(4)

number of studies that have explored the generality of these theories. Studies have focused on the

applicability of theories across gender (Booth, Farrell, & Varano, 2008; Daigle, Cullen, & Wright,

2007; Heimer & De Coster, 1999; Piquero, Gover, MacDonald, & Piquero, 2005), racial and

ethnic groups (Cernkovich & Giordano, 1992; Junger & Marshall, 1997; Matsueda & Heimer,

1987), and location (Gardner & Shoemaker, 1989; Sigfusdottir, Kristjansson, & Agnew, 2012;

Vazsonyi & Belliston, 2007).

There have been far fewer studies that systematically examine the generality of theories across

different eras or generations, yet the increasing availability of studies that include data from

adjacent generations of the same family affords scholars the opportunity to rigorously test if the

same risk, protective, and causal processes that account for drug use at one time period for one

generation apply at a later time period for the next generation. Intergenerational studies typically

start from an original longitudinal study that followed a focal participant, often referred to as

Generation 2 (or G2), as well as a parent (Generation 1 or G1). Several recent studies (e.g.,

Bailey, Hill, Oesterle, & Hawkins, 2006; Capaldi, Pears, & Kerr, 2012; Conger, Neppl, Kim, &

Scaramella, 2003) have extended the investigation of drug use and comorbid behaviors to focus

on the children of the initial G2 participants, adding a third generation (G3) to the study. The

primary purpose of these intergenerational extensions is to examine the extent to which there is

cross-generational continuity in the behavior of interest and to identify mediating and moderating

influences that help account for it. Within this overall framework, a specific research question

focuses on the extent to which risk and causal processes are the same across the generations. If

theories of deviant behavior are general, they should apply across time and the explanatory fac-

tors that predict G2 drug use during adolescence should also predict to a similar extent, the drug

use of their G3 children during adolescence. If theories do not generalize across generations, that

would raise a host of questions about the theoretical adequacy of the models, as well as their abil-

ity to guide the development of effective prevention and treatment programs.

Although theoretical generality is a core, but often implicit, assumption of most theories of

deviant behavior, there is surprisingly little empirical investigation of whether or not they apply

equally well across generations. In fact, we have found only one study of this issue that focuses

specifically on explanations for substance use (Menard & Johnson, 2015) and two others that

examine delinquency (Farrington, Ttofi, Crago, & Coid, 2014; M. C. Johnson, Morris, & Menard,

2015). They are reviewed below. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to extend this line of

research and examine whether core theories of deviant behavior explain the adolescent drug use

of both a parent and their child equally well.

Theoretical Perspectives

We will focus on three theoretical perspectives for our cross-generational analysis, social control

theory (Hirschi, 1969), social learning theory (Akers, 1998), and elaborated models that combine

variables from both of those perspectives (Catalano & Hawkins, 1996; Thornberry & Krohn,

2005). These theories have been selected for three reasons. First, and most importantly, they

explicitly purport to be general theories of deviant behavior, including drug use that should apply

similarly across type of behavior, time, and place. The lack of ambiguity concerning their gener-

ality is appealing because if results are not similar across generations, the conclusion regarding

this key assertion will also be unambiguous. Second, the explanatory variables that comprise

these theories are among the most important risk and protective factors for drug use (Hawkins,

Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986; Smith, Lizotte, Thornberry, &

Krohn, 1995). Third, the theoretical domains that comprise these theories—that is, family, school,

beliefs (or definitions), and peers—are of central importance to almost all social-psychological

theories of drug use. Therefore, by focusing on these concepts, we will be able to examine not

only how these specific theories relate to drug use across the generations but also, by extension,