age,sociallearning,and socialbondinginadolescent substanceuse.pdfVIP

age, social learning, and social bonding in adolescent substance use Ronald L. Akers and Gang Lee University of Florida Gainesville, Florida, USA We propose t hat social learning and social bonding t heories are capable of account ing for t he well-known relat ionship of crime and delinquency t o age. Models incorporat ing age and variables derived from t hese two t heories are tested wit h dat a on adolescent substance use among a large sample of Midwest adolescent s in Grades 7 t hrough 12. Older adolescent s consume more marijuana t han younger adolescent s, and t he age– use curve is matched by t he relat ionship between age and social learning variables. Di erences in use by age are also correlat ed wit h di erences in st rengt h of social bonds by age, but t o a lesser ext ent . The ndings support t he hypot hesis t hat age variat ions in marijuana use are mediated by age-relat ed variat ions in social learning ; t here is also support , alt hough somewhat weaker, for t he similar hypot hesis t hat social bonding variables mediate t he age– marijuana use relat ionship during adolescence. Age di erences in delinquency, crime, and deviance are well known, and inclusion of an age variable (along wit h gender, class, and other sociodemographic variables) is almost rout ine in research on crime and delinquency. Alt hough most of this research treats age and these other variables as simply cont rol or nontheoret ical variables, t hey have t heoret ical connot ations as indicators of di erences in social roles, social charact erist ics, or sociocultural inuences on behavior. The theoret ical rele- vance of t he age fact or in crime and deviance has been given added signicance and renewed att ent ion by the work of Travis Receiv