The role of older brothers in younger brothers' drug use viewed in the context of parent and peer influences

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of an older brother's drug use on his younger brother's drug use viewed in the context of parent and peer influences. The sample consisted of 278 White, middle-class male college students and their oldest brothers, who were given questionnaires assessing drug behavior. Results indicated that older brother, parental, and peer drug use each had an independent impact on younger brother's use. The degree of influence varied, with drug modeling by peers and older brothers having a stronger association with younger brother drug use than did parental drug modeling. Further, the older brother's advocacy of drugs was associated with his younger brother's use even if the older brother did not serve as a drug model. Similarly, older brother drug modeling was of importance even if he did not advocate use. Finally, interactive results suggested that older brothers who did not use drugs could offset the negative effects of parental drug risks on younger brother use. Also, younger brothers were least likely to use drugs if both older brothers and peers served as models for nonuse.     

Sensation seeking, aggressiveness, and adolescent reckless behavior

Sensation seeking and aggressiveness were hypothesized to contribute to the developmental basis of reckless behavior in adolescence. This hypothesis was investigated in two studies, one on high school students and the other on college students. Sensation seeking was found to be related to every type of reckless behavior, including five types of automobile driving, sex without contraception, sex with someone known only casually, number of sexual partners, alcohol and drug use, vandalism, and theft. Aggressiveness was related to several of the driving variables, as well as to vandalism and theft. For every type of reckless behavior, frequencies of reckless behavior were as high or higher for the college students than for the high school students. Findings are discussed in relation to socialization in the culture of the American middle-class.     

Attributions for Success and Failure in Children of Different Social Class

Abstract

Seventh-grade male and female students (N = 60), divided on the basis of socioeconomic status, were asked to attribute causes to their success or failure on a block-design measure after having experienced solvable, unsolvable, or no pretreatment problems. Differences in use of attributions to ability, effort, task ease, and luck factors were analyzed. The results failed to support the hypothesis that social class groups would differ in their use of attributions in response to success. Subjects were more clearly differentiated, however, in their choice of attributions for failure, with lower class failing students less prone to ascribe their outcome to unstable causes than middle-class failing students.     

Flow Experience,Culture, and Well-being: How Do Autotelic Japanese College Students Feel,Behave, and Think in Their Daily Lives?

This study attempted to show how autotelic people who live in a non-Western culture feel, behave, and think in their daily lives. Using a sample of 315 Japanese college students, a series of correlation analyses were conducted between the frequency of flow experience as an indicator of autotelic personality and a broad range of well-being measures. A distribution analysis revealed that on average Japanese college students experienced flow more than a “few times a year,” but less than “once a month.” In the examination of relations between flow and well-being measures, autotelic Japanese college students, or those who experienced flow more often in their daily lives, were more likely to show higher self-esteem and lower anxiety, use active coping strategies more often and use passive coping strategies less often, as compared to their less autotelic counterparts. They were more likely to report active commitments to college life, search for future career, and daily activities in general. They also reported more Jujitsu-kan, a Japanese sense of fulfillment, and greater satisfaction with their lives. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of what experiencing flow means and what effects flow potentially has for college students in a non-Western culture.     

Effects of Race and Victim Drinking on Domestic Violence Attributions

This research examines the mutual influence of race and victim drinking on college students' domestic violence attributions. Participants were 200, predominately White, middle-class college students. They read a vignette depicting a domestic violence incident. Manipulated within the vignette were batterer race, victim race, and victim drinking. After reading the vignette, participants completed a questionnaire concerning their perceptions of the domestic assault. Results indicate batterers in interracial relationships are attributed more guilt than batterers in same-race relationships. In addition, when domestic violence victims drink alcoholic beverages before a domestic assault, more responsibility for the assault is attributed to Black victims than to their White counterparts. Furthermore, domestic violence victims who drink alcohol are ascribed more blame and derogation in comparison to abstinent domestic violence victims. We examine these findings in relation to stereotypes and gender-role violations. Implications for actors involved in domestic violence are also discussed.     

The social class worldviews of first-generation college students

The social class worldviews (social class beliefs, attitudes, and values) of 14 first-generation college students were investigated with qualitative interviews. Consensual qualitative research analysis revealed first-generation students’ perspectives on the development of their social class worldviews, the effect of these worldviews on their transitions to college, and vice versa. The students’ pre-college beliefs and values promoted hard work and college attendance as a means of financial success. The transition to college created disequilibrium in the social class worldviews of the students interviewed, who in turn responded by attempting to adapt to the new culture, emphasizing their social class background, or downplaying the role of social class in their lives altogether. College professionals working with first-generation students are encouraged to facilitate dialogues with first-generation students about their social class worldview and its impact on students’ engagement with the college community.     

大学生职业决策和自尊、成就动机的关系

在应用自尊量表(SES)和成就动机量表(AMS)对106名大学生(男生46名,女生60名)进行调查的基础上,通过设计框架性职业决策情景,探究了大学生职业决策和自尊、成就动机的关系。结果发现:(1)成就动机中避免失败变量与框架效应的交互作用对大学生职业决策倾向性有显著性影响;(2)自尊水平对大学生职业决策倾向性存在显著性作用;(3)框架效应在大学生职业决策中发生作用,对大学生的职业决策倾向性有显著的影响。     

Older sibling correlates of younger sibling drug use in the context of parent-child relations

The purpose of this study was to examine older brother correlates of younger brother drug use in the context of parental influences and younger brother personality. The sample consisted of 278 White male college students and their oldest brothers, who volunteered to answer self-administered questionnaires. Results indicated that 3 domains of influence each had an independent impact on younger brother drug use: (a) parent-younger brother relationships and parent drug use, (b) older brother-younger brother relationships and older brother drug use, and (c) younger brother personality. Modeling of nondrug use and a strong attachment relationship in the parent-younger brother and sibling dyads, as well as younger sibling traits of conventionality, had strong links to low younger brother drug use. Our findings highlight the importance of modeling and mutual parent-child attachment relationships as well as sibling relationships as they relate to the possible etiology of drug use.     

MySpace and Facebook: applying the uses and gratifications theory to exploring friend-networking sites.

The increased use of the Internet as a new tool in communication has changed the way people interact. This fact is even more evident in the recent development and use of friend-networking sites. However, no research has evaluated these sites and their impact on college students. Therefore, the present study was conducted to evaluate: (a) why people use these friend-networking sites, (b) what the characteristics are of the typical college user, and (c) what uses and gratifications are met by using these sites. Results indicated that the vast majority of college students are using these friend-networking sites for a significant portion of their day for reasons such as making new friends and locating old friends. Additionally, both men and women of traditional college age are equally engaging in this form of online communication with this result holding true for nearly all ethnic groups. Finally, results showed that many uses and gratifications are met by users (e.g., "keeping in touch with friends"). Results are discussed in light of the impact that friend-networking sites have on communication and social needs of college students.     

Drug use and its relation to high school students' activities

In a high school in a suburb of Detroit, students' attitudes toward, use of, and money spent on drugs, as well as possible alternative activities, were investigated. The sample included 42 enrolled in alternative education designed for students at risk for drug abuse, pregnancy, etc., who might attend college if guided carefully, and 65 regular students who were a mix of college and noncollege bound. The two groups did not differ in actual drug use, most likely because those who recommended students to the alternative education program used low grade point average and not drug use as criterion. Very few "hard" drugs were used. Most frequently used were readily available drugs such as alcohol. Use of a drug, spending money on it, or believing that it is all right for adolescents to use the drug did not automatically indicate frequent use of the drug. Contrary to adults' expectations, "hangin' out" with peers decreased use of "soft" drugs. Family activities for some involved the use of hard drugs together or the condoning of use. To create effective drug-prevention programs, the effects of different activities need to be explored further, and admission criteria need to be well delineated.     

Parental Attitudes of Farm,Town, and City Parents in Relation to Certain Personality Adjustments in their Children

Summary

Perceptual differences were investigated between 50 college students who were non-drug users and 50 hippies who used LSD. The groups were matched for race, sex, and age. No significant differences were found between intelligence and social class. The seven perceptual tests used were Color-Form Attention Test, Judgment of Sounds, Autokinetic Effect, Six-Inch Estimation, Rod and Frame Test, Estimation of Head Width, and Perceptual Acuity Test. The first hypothesis was that hippies would respond to the perceptual measures in a developmentally more primitive or childlike fashion than the college students. The second hypothesis was that hippies who reported mostly bad drug trips would be more like college students than the hippies who reported good drug trips.

The results support part of the first hypothesis in that hippies performed significantly differently from college students in the predicted direction on the Color-Form Attention, Judgment of Sounds, and Autokinetic Effect Tests only. No significant differences were found between hippies reporting good vs. bad drug trips. These findings are discussed in relation to perceptual style and theory.     

Self-image bias in drug use attributions

The aim was to examine the degree to which people's personal drug use affects how they perceive other drug users, with a view to investigating the possibility that drug use attributions are a function of self-image bias. University students (n = 60), categorized post hoc as drug users or nonusers, completed questionnaires assessing locus, control, and stability attributions about their own personal drug use or imagined drug use. Attributions pertaining to presented vignettes of light and heavy drug use by others were also assessed. Heavy drug use elicited the most "addicted" attributions (dispositional locus, low control, and high stability) and drug-using participants made more addicted attributions about their own personal drug use than did nonusing participants about their imagined use. Additionally, attributions made by non-drug users regarding their imagined personal drug use were similar to those they made for the light drug use described in presented vignettes. Conversely, drug users made attributions which were similar for their personal drug use and for the heavy drug-use vignette. These data lend support to conceptualizing addiction as a product of the functional attribution process-"addict" attributions being applied mainly where drug use is more problematic (heavy) and thus in need of explanation. The data also lend support to the notion that a self-image bias is operating in drug use attributions when people can identify with the behavior of others.