Social Influences: Effects of the Social Environment on the Use of Alcohol and Other Drugs

Abstract

The research aimed to measure social influences produced by the differential effects of “high use” and “low use” environments on students' vulnerability to substance misuse. Each environment was represented by 3,000 students sampled from high and low use colleges. The social influences were measured by comparing vulnerability/resistance scores derived through a cognitive mapping strategy of the Associative Group Analysis method. Using an advanced system of software, empirical measures of students' propensities to use or not to use harmful substances were obtained by comparing hundreds of spontaneous responses elicited from individual respondents to the response distributions of reference groups of frequent alcohol/drug users and nonusers. In all comparisons, students with higher levels of reported use also showed higher vulnerability. In all comparisons, students in the high use environment showed significantly higher levels of vulnerability than students in the low use environment. ANOVA results indicated the vulnerability of students was significantly related to (high vs low use) campus environment as well as to marijuana use, alcohol use, and gender. Measuring vulnerability as a function of social influences opens numerous applications in proactive prevention.