Premium
Sociodemographic differences in youth alcohol sipping's nomological network
Author(s) -
Watts Ashley L.,
Megahan JaiAnna F.,
Conlin William E.,
Doss Mark I.,
Sher Kenneth J.
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/acer.14790
Subject(s) - impulsivity , psychopathology , psychology , mood , clinical psychology , conduct disorder , psychosocial , psychiatry , personality , substance abuse , social psychology
Background Previous research has established that certain features of personality (e.g., impulsivity), psychopathology (e.g., impulsivity, mood disorder, thought disorder), and contextual factors (e.g., parenting, parental alcohol use) are associated with an increased likelihood of having sipped alcohol in youth, and substance involvement and problems in adolescence and adulthood. What is less clear from the existing literature is whether well‐established risk factors of substance use are consistent across sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, religious affiliation, income, parental education). Methods We used a large, community sample of 9‐ and 10‐year‐olds ( N = 11,872; 53% female) to examine whether various sociodemographic characteristics moderate the associations between sipping behavior and its various well‐established correlates (e.g., impulsivity, behavioral inhibition and activation, psychopathology, parenting, and family conflict). Results There were small mean level differences in sipping across sociodemographic characteristics. Across sociodemographic characteristics, however, sipping was fairly uniformly associated with youth‐reported impulsivity, behavioral activation, prodromal psychosis symptoms, mood and externalizing disorder diagnoses, family environment, and parental alcohol consumption indices. Effects were sometimes slightly more pronounced among groups for which alcohol consumption is relatively nonnormative: Sipping among female youth was slightly more associated with thought disorder psychopathology than among male youth ( D = 0.07), and was slightly more associated with some aspects of psychopathology and impulsivity for Black youth than White and Hispanic youth ( D s were 0.07 and 0.09). Conclusions Broadly, our findings suggest that the psychosocial correlates of precocious alcohol use are relatively consistent across sociodemographic factors.