Abstract
This chapter reports a longitudinal study of the social-psychological process of ‘becoming a drinker,’ that is, of making the transition from abstainer status to drinker status. Applying the personality, perceived environment, and behavioral system predictors of Problem Behavior Theory to junior and senior high school adolescents who had not yet begun to drink permitted an examination of prior variation that signaled the likelihood of making the transition from abstainer to drinker over a one-year time interval. Initial differences on these social-psychological predictors significantly predicted the transition to drinker status. The perceived environment variable, Social Support for Drinking, emerged as most important, but variables from the personality system, Value on Achievement and Value on Independence, were also significantly related to the transition. The study introduces the concept of adolescent proneness to make a developmental transition, and the necessity of longitudinal design in understanding developmental change.
Reprinted with permission from: Jessor, R., Collins, M. I., & Jessor, S. L. (1972). On becoming a drinker: Social-psychological aspects of an adolescent transition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 197, 199–213.
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Notes
- 1.
Although persistent follow-up efforts were made to gain the cooperation of the 2220 subjects initially designated, the fact that parental permission was a necessity and the fact that participation required remaining after school for an hour and a half or so on a Spring afternoon both contributed to the lower than desirable initial percentage of participation. Retention between years I and II was, however, at a very acceptable level; the overall retention rate of 81% is satisfactory and probably reflects the commitment of the starting cohort to the study, as well as the fact that participants in year II were paid the sum of $2.00 as compensation for the time involved. Students who moved away from the community were contacted and sent the questionnaire to be filled out and returned by mail. The fact that only 42% of the originally designated random sample of students ultimately participated in the research means that findings on the starting cohort cannot be generalized back with confidence as descriptive of the school population. While this limitation is unfortunate, it does not in any way preclude the testing of hypotheses nor does it diminish the significance of developmental analyses of the starting cohort itself.
- 2.
The concept of “abstainer” as used here applies to those who have never used alcohol, rather than to those who may have used it previously and no longer do. The present definition is consistent with our interest in “beginning to drink” as a status-transition behavior. Abstainers, in this study, may be considered as those who have not yet begun to drink; the aim of the research is to predict which of them will begin drinking in the subsequent year.
- 3.
The sex and school-level composition of each drinker-status group is as follows: group A (male junior high, N = 84; female junior high, N = 100; male senior high, N = 12; female senior high, N = 25); group B (male junior high, N = 19; female junior high, N = 41; male senior high, N = 4; female senior high, N = 13); group C (male junior high, N = 120; female junior high, N = 126; male senior high, N = 40; female senior high, N = 82). The data to be presented are by the drinker-status groups, A, B, and C, as a whole. Analyses were also carried out by sex and school levels; they indicate highly consistent findings for all sex-by school-level subgroups, which provided justification for combining them as indicated.
- 4.
It is of interest to note that, in terms of raw mean gains over the year, both groups decreased in value on achievement, and both groups increased in value on independence; the raw gains are not, therefore, as revealing of change differences between the two groups as are the Δ gains.
References
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Acknowledgments
The assistance of Mr. Robert Burton with the analyses of data, especially the change data, is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are also indebted to Dr. Delbert Elliott for his thoughtful critique of a previous draft of this paper.
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Jessor, R., Collins, M.I., Jessor, S.L. (2017). Predicting the Initiation of Alcohol Use. In: Problem Behavior Theory and Adolescent Health . Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51349-2_2
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