Shirley L. Jessor

On becoming a drinker: social-psychological aspects of an adolescent transition

The course of psychosocial development is often marked by the appearance, for the first time, of certain new behaviors, behaviors not previously part of the individual’s repertoire. During adolescence, especially, engaging in certain behaviors for the first time serves to define or lay claim to important changes in status that cumulate in the transition between childhood and adulthood. Among behaviors having this function are those that are institutionally recognized as permitted or prescribed components of a more mature status while being discouraged or proscribed for the incumbents of a less mature status. Examples, such as “looking for a job” or “having sexual intercourse,” would include also, for many adolescents in American society, “beginning to drink.” Although conceptualizing the appearance of such behaviors as part of an adolescent transition suggests some of the probable goals involved, it does not offer a sufficient explanation of why some adolescents engage in the behavior and others do not. More important, it does not explain why the behavior appears early in adolescence for some and occurs much later for others. Additional explanatory concepts are obviously required to account for the variation in occurrence and time of occurrence of behaviors, such as drinking, that may mark a status transition during adolescence. As long as an adolescent occupies a status (or an age) in which certain Gehaviors are discouraged or proscribed, it is useful to consider his engaging in them as departures from regulatory norms. An understanding of behavior that departs from norms may be derived from a social psychology of deviant behavior (see, for example, Jessor and colleagues*). Such variables as personal values and expectations that can serve as instigators to transgression, individual attitudes and orientations that can serve as personal controls against transgression, and social supports and controls that characterize the context in which such behavior occurs all should have some relation to variation in occurrence and in age of onset of behaviors that are normatively proscribed during adolescence. Since the proscriptions against many of the behaviors that mark adolescent transitions are actually ageor status-related rather than absolute (the proscriptions tend to be withdrawn or to become inoperative when a certain age is reached, e.g., for drinking, or when a certain status is achieved, e.g. marriage, for sexual intercourse), the most important issue to account for in such cases is not the occurrence-nonoccurrence of the behavior but rather the differential time of its occurrence or age of its onset. It is this fundamental issue of variation in the age of onset of temporarily proscribed behaviors that encourages a coalescence of the social psychologies of deviant behavior and of adolescent development. As it turns out, several of the aspects cited as characteristics of adolescent development in general in contemporary American society would also be relevant

Problem Behavior and Psychosocial Development: A Longitudinal Study of Growth.

This study is the 2nd phase of a long-term program of research on problem behavior. The approach to theory testing involves a longitudinal design. The study plots trajectories of change over time in personality social environment and behavior and uses the theory to forecast important transitions--beginning to drink starting to use marijuana and becoming a nonvirgin. The book has 4 main sections: 1) an introductory chapter and a chapter describing problem-behavior theory and research design and method 2) the cross-sectional findings and their bearing on the theory 3) the longitudinal findings and 4) studies of socialization and conclusions. Using adolescents and youths in American society in the late 1960s and early 1970s this research represents a logical continuation of a long term interest in problem behavior and a recognition that what was going on among youth and in the student movement can be viewed from a problem-behavior perspective. This high school study began in the spring of 1969 with grades 7 8 and 9; by the end of the study in 1972 these participants had all made the transition from junior to senior high school of grades 10 11 and 12. Each year each participant completed a 50 page questionnaire inquiring about their drug use sexual behavior alcohol drinking and the problem behavior associated with excessive use of alcohol. Some of the major findings suggest that: 1) the prevalence of problem behaviors is substantial at the college level and while much lower sizable at the high school level; 2) personal controls appear to be most influential in relation to the set of problem behaviors motivational-instigations are next and personal beliefs are least; 3) the adolescent who is less likely to engage in problem behavior is one who values academic achievement and expects to do well academically; 4) within the distal structure the variables that indicate whether a youth is parent-oriented or peer-oriented are the most significant; and 5) the developmental changes most often measured in connection with growth trends are growth of independence decline in traditional ideology related to achievement value and society as a whole assumption of a more relativistic and tolerant morality attenuation of conventional norms and religious beliefs increase in peer influence and increase in problem behavior itself. Overall it would be an important step forward for prevention and control if problem behavior in youth came to be seen as part of the dialectic of growth.

Predicting the Initiation of Alcohol Use

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.

Problem Behavior Theory and the Use of Marijuana

This chapter is a report of the testing of Problem Behavior Theory in longitudinal research on adolescent and young adult marijuana use. Samples of high school and college youth were followed over a four-year period, and data on their use of marijuana and on a large number of theory-derived psychosocial and behavioral measures were collected. A variety of theory-testing strategies were employed the convergence of which permitted a stronger claim on the causal relevance of the theory. The effectiveness of the theory in accounting for cross-sectional variation in marijuana use, for explaining change in marijuana use, and for predicting timing of onset of marijuana use was established across age, gender, and high school vs college contexts. The research also employed the concept of transition proneness to illuminate the developmental implications of Problem Behavior Theory.

The Perceived Environment as Social Context

The aim of this chapter has been to contribute to clarification of the relations between environmental, personality, and behavioral variables. It was argued that the diverse concepts of environments could be ordered along a distal-proximal dimension, with those near the proximal end capable of being experienced by an actor, and, hence, constituting the perceived environment. Personality development over time and action at any point in time were considered to be invariant with or dependent upon the perceived environment. Explanation of any relations between the distal environment and personality or behavior would seem, therefore, to require mediating proximal or perceived environment variables. Several properties of perceived environments were specified—differentiation or texture, depth, temporal extension, and generality-specificity—and data were introduced which provided some degree of empirical support for them.

Marijuana Use in High School and College

Problem Behavior Theory, consisting of personality, perceived environment, and behavior systems, was employed to account for variation in marijuana use among junior high, senior high, and college students, both male and female. The research design enabled both cross-sectional comparisons between nonusers and users on variables in each of the systems and longitudinal comparisons between those who shifted to user status over a 1-year interval and those who remained nonusers. Data revealed a similar pattern of personality, environment, and behavior differences between all nonuser and user groups, suggesting a pervasive social-psychological constancy. The same variables were also predictive of the shift from nonuse to use over time among the high school students but not the college students.

Alcohol Use and Adolescent Development

Junior and senior high-school students were studied over a 4-year period. The likelihood of initiating drinking was directly related to the degree of transition- or problem-proneness, and a developmental relationship between onset of drinking and other sociopsychological attributes was found. It is concluded that becoming a drinker is an integral aspect of the process of adolescent development.

The Transition to Sexual Intercourse Experience

A social psychology of problem behavior was employed to account for variation in an aspect of development—the transition from virginity to nonvirginity. Personality, perceived environment, and behavioral measures were collected by questionnaires administered annually to high school and college males and females. In cross-sectional comparisons, nonvirgins differed from virgins in the theoretically expected transition-prone direction, including higher value on independence, lower value on achievement, greater social criticism and tolerance of deviance, and greater friends’ models for deviance. In longitudinal comparisons, virgins who were to become non-virgins in the subsequent year were already significantly more transition-prone on these antecedent measures than virgins who were to remain virgins. The results were stronger at the high school than at the college level, and for females than for males.

Problem Behavior Theory and Adolescent Development

This chapter is a summary of the theory and research findings from the Socialization of Problem Behavior in Youth Study. It reviews the contributions of the Personality System variables and the Perceived Environment System variables in Problem Behavior Theory to an explanation of problem behavior in samples of adolescents in High School and young people in College in a university community in the Rocky Mountain region. Although each theoretical system provides a significant account of problem behavior variation, in both samples and for both sexes, their combined contribution is larger than that of either alone. The pattern of findings supports the usefulness of the new concept, ‘problem behavior syndrome,’ to reflect the co-variation that obtained among various problem behaviors in both samples. It also supports the new concept of ‘transition proneness,’ the pattern of theoretical attributes reflecting a readiness to make a developmental transition. The chapter elaborates the developmental and predictive results of this four-wave, longitudinal study and makes clear, for the first time, the developmental relevance of Problem Behavior Theory.

Problem Behavior Theory: Initial Formulation for the Tri-Ethnic Community Study

This chapter is a summary of the theoretical approach and the findings of The Tri-Ethnic Community Study initiated in 1960 in a small community in the Rocky Mountain west made up of Native Americans (Indians), long-time Spanish American residents, and Anglos (Whites). The formulation of an interdisciplinary, social-psychological theory to account for variation in alcohol use and other problem behaviors across and within the three ethnic groups is described, as are the findings generated by three converging studies in the community. This theoretical framework is the earliest version of what later became Problem Behavior Theory. Both the Sociocultural System and the Personality System of variables in the theory were significant predictors of alcohol use and other problem behaviors and, together, their explanatory account was even stronger. The limitations of the research are dealt with in detail as are its unique contributions. In the end, the chapter illuminates the meaning of ethnic status as a particular constellation of the social-psychological attributes in the theoretical framework.