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Reputation Enhancement Theory and Adolescent Substance Use
Author(s) -
Odgers Peta,
Houghton Stephen,
Douglas Graham
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1996.tb01498.x
Subject(s) - psychology , reputation , coping (psychology) , multivariate analysis of variance , substance use , developmental psychology , self concept , social psychology , clinical psychology , social science , machine learning , sociology , computer science
Data pertaining to self‐reported substance use, reputation enhancement, self‐concept and coping strategies were obtained from 1,204 Western Australian metropolitan state high school adolescents using the High School Student Activity Questionnaire. Previous research has identified low self‐concept levels and inadequate coping strategies as being major contributors to adolescent substance use. The findings of the present research offer some support for this. A 4 × 2 × 3 MANOVA revealed, however, that reputation enhancement differentiated between current substance users, ex‐users and non‐users to a greater extent than either self‐concept levels or coping strategies. Differences between male and female students, however, were identified more through self‐concept and coping variables than by reputation enhancement variables. No interaction effect and no main effect for year group were present. The implications for drug education are discussed.