Penny for Your Thoughts? The Protective Effect of Youths’ Attitudes Against Drug Use in High-Risk Communities

• Author: Abigail A. Fagan,Emily M. Wright,Gillian M. Pinchevsky
• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Date: 01 April 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1541204014562074
• Published By: Sage Publications, Inc.
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Penny for Your Thoughts?

The Protective Effect

of Youths’ Attitudes

Against Drug Use in

High-Risk Communities

Emily M. Wright

1

, Abigail A. Fagan

2

, and Gillian M. Pinchevsky

3

Abstract

Individual-level attitudes about drugs are strong predictors of substance use among adolescents, and

aggregate-level community norms regarding deviancy and drug use may influence youth attitudes as

well as their drug use. This study examined the direct effects of neighborhood norms about deviance,

disadvantage, immigrant concentration, and residential stability on youths’ attitudes about drug harm-

fulness as well as their variety of past month substance use. The moderating effect of community

norms on the relationship between youth attitudes and drug use was also examined. Results suggest

that community norms favorable to deviance and drug use reduced youth’s attitudes that drugs were

harmful. Further, youth’s perceptions of drug harmfulness significantly reduced their substance use in

the past month. Neighborhood concentrated immigration also significantly reduced substance use.

Finally, living in areas where norms were favorable to deviance enhanced the protective effect of

youths’ perceptions. Implications for research and substance use prevention strategies are discussed.

Keywords

drug use, youth attitudes, neighborhood norms

Introduction

Youth attitudes regarding the acceptability and/or harms associated with drug use are important

factors that can impact their substance use (e.g., Donovan, 2004; Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller,

1992; Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2011). In general, studies indicate an inverse

relationship between intolerance of drug use and actual use, such that youth who believe that

1

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE, USA

2

Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

3

Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Corresponding Author:

Emily M. Wright, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, 6001 Dodge Street, 218 CPACS,

Omaha, NE 68182, USA.

Email: emwright@unomaha.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2016, Vol. 14(2) 110-129

ªThe Author(s) 2014

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204014562074

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substance use is harmful or who disapprove of drugs are less likely to use drugs, while youth who

engage in substance use are more likely to approve of it or believe that it is not harmful (Bachman,

Johnston, & O’Malley, 1998; Bachman, Johnston, O’Malley, & Humphrey, 1988), believe many

of their peers also use drugs (Johnston et al., 2011; Miller-Day & Barnett, 2004; Simons-Morton

et al., 1999), and/or expect positive benefits from its use (Barkin, Smith, & DuRant, 2002; Grube

& Agostinelli, 1999; Simons-Morton et al., 19 99). Recent data suggest that yo uth are likely becom-

ing more tolerant and accepting of substance use, with the percentage of 10th and 12th graders

reporting that alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco are harmful or pose ‘‘great risk’’ declining from

2009 to 2010 (Johnston et al., 2011). For instance, in 2009, 52%of 12th graders reported that

smoking marijuana regularly was very harmful, but only 46%reported similar views in 2010

(Johnston et al., 2011). Additionally, only 25%of 12th graders in 2010 believed that having one

or two drinks (beer, wine, or liquor) nearly every day was very harmful and less than 40%of 8th

graders perceived that smoking up to five cigarettes a day posed a great risk of harm (Johnston

et al., 2011).

These trends emphasize the need to understand how youth’s attitudes affect their substance use.

One somewhat neglected, yet potentially important, area of research is the impact that neighbor-

hood context may have on the development of youth attitudes, as well as the interrelationship

between neighborhood context, individual attitudes, and youth substance use. Relatively few stud-

ies have examined contextual factors that may influence youths’ attitudes about drug use

(Lipperman-Kreda, Grube, & Paschall, 2010; Thrul, Lipperman-Kreda, Grube, & Friend, 2014).

Further, scant research has focused on the contextual factors that may moderate the impact of

individual attitudes regarding substance use, although some studies have examined how context

may interact with individual-level demographic characteristics such as sex or race/ethnicity

(e.g., Lambert, Brown, Phillips, & Ialongo, 2004).

The limited focus on neighborhood context is unfortunate and inhibits our ability to explain

the ecological patterning, or differences across social contexts, of youth substance use and their

attitudes about substance use. For example, while there does appear to be some research to suggest

that substance use varies across neighborhood contexts (Feinberg, Jones, Cleveland, & Greenberg,

2012; Karriker-Jaffe, 2011; Wilcox, 2003), we know much less about why or how neighborhoods

impact substance use than we know about how neighborhoods influence other adolescent prob-

lems (e.g., delinquency). A better understanding of the contextualization of substance use can

help inform prevention and/or intervention efforts designed to reduce substance use, especially

those that can simultaneously address ecological and individual influences on drug use (Fagan

& Hawkins, 2012; Flay, 2000). We expand upon this line of research in this study and examine

the potential for neighborhood factors to influence youths’ perceptions of the harmfulness of drug

use, as well as to moderate the relationship between youths’ attitudes regarding substance use and

their own substance use.

Youth Attitudes and Substance Use

Explanations for the relationship between individual attitudes about drug use and actual engagement

in substance use are plentiful. Social learning theory (Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich,

1979) posits that youth w ho are exposed to others who use dru gs or who perceive ( perhaps erro-

neously) that their friends or close acquaintances use drugs are at greater risk for substance use

themselves (Donovan, 2004; Hawkins et al., 1992; Miller-Day & Barnett, 2004; Patel & Fromme,

2010; Thrul et al., 2014). When drug use is modeled, reinforced, and accepted by others in their

peer or intimate groups, youth are more likely to emulate this behavior and/or believe that it is

acceptable and not particularly harmful (Bandura, 1979; Kosterman, Hawkins, Guo, Catalano,

& Abbott, 2000; Zimmerman & Vasquez, 2011). Holding beliefs that drug use is ‘‘okay,’’

Wright et al. 111