Personality predictors of the development of elementary school children's intentions to drink alcohol: The mediating effects of attitudes and subjective norms.

Abstract

The authors tested a mediation model in which childhood hostility and sociability were expected to influence the development of intentions to use alcohol in the future through the mediating mechanisms of developing attitudes and norms. Children in 1 st through 5 th grades (N = 1,049) from a Western Oregon community participated in a longitudinal study involving four annual assessments. Hostility and sociability were assessed by teachers= ratings at the first assessment, and attitudes, subjective norms and intentions were assessed by self-report at all four assessments. For both genders, latent growth modeling demonstrated that sociability predicted an increase in intentions to use alcohol over time, whereas hostility predicted initial levels of these intentions. These personality effects were mediated by the development of attitudes and subjective norms, supporting a model wherein childhood personality traits exert their influence on the development of intentions to use alcohol through the development of these more proximal cognitions. KeywordsPersonality; children; alcohol intentions; attitudes; subjective norms Alcohol is a widely accepted and licit substance that children as young as 3 years old can recognize (Spiegler, 1983). Early use by children and adolescents is associated with adult alcohol abuse (Grant & Dawson, 1997;Newcomb & Bentler, 1988). Although there has been considerable research on contextual, family and peer influences (Andrews, Hops & Duncan, 1997;Andrews, Hops, Tildesley & Li, 2002;Brook, Whiteman, Nomura, Gordon, & Cohen, 1988;Duncan, Duncan, & Hops, 1994; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992), there has been less examination of the influence of young children's personality traits and cognitions on the development of alcohol use (Tarter, 1988;Tarter et al., 1999). In the present study, we examined whether the influence of two personality traits, hostility and sociability, on the development of intentions regarding future alcohol use was mediated by attitudes and subjective norms. Both traits were assessed by teacher's ratings. Hostility was defined as physical and relational aggression, and associating with misbehaving children; sociability was defined as a combination of social competence, energy, and popularity. This model was tested on a community sample of young children participating in an ongoing longitudinal study, the Oregon Youth Substance Use Project (OYSUP; Andrews, Tildesley, Hops, Duncan, & Severson, 2003;Severson, Andrews, & Walker, 2003). The data reported Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sarah E. Hampson, Ph.D., Oregon Research Institute, 1715 Franklin Blvd., Eugene, Oregon, 94703-1983. E-mail: sarah@ori.org. . here are from the first four years of the project following children from the 1 st through the 5 th grade until they were in the 4 th through the 8 th grade. Although few children in 1 st through 8 th grades have experimented with alcohol, during this period they develop intentions regarding their future use of alcohol. NIH Public Ac...

Childhood predictors of adolescent marijuana use: Early sensation-seeking, deviant peer affiliation, and social images

“…The findings suggest that prevention efforts should begin earlier than is current practice. Findings for alcohol and tobacco use from the same study (OYSUP) have also pointed to the importance of early intervention to prevent the development of cognitive and behavioral risk factors leading to substance use (Andrews, Hampson, Barckley, Gerrard, & Gibbons, in press;Hampson, Andrews, & Barckley, 2007;Hampson, Andrews, Barckley, & Severson, 2006). Early prevention programs should be designed to be effective for sensation-seeking children, which may require greater use of novelty and content associated with positive risk taking to appeal to such children.…”

The effect of early cognitions on cigarette and alcohol use during adolescence.

“…We tested these models on a community sample of young children participating in an ongoing longitudinal study, the Oregon Youth Substance Use Project (OYSUP; Andrews, Tildesley, Hops, Duncan, & Severson, 2003;Severson, Andrews, & Walker, 2003;Hampson et al, 2006;Andrews & Peterson, 2006) 1 . Model testing included an assessment of gender and grade differences.…”

Analyses of factors that influence alcohol use among children: a prospective path analysis / Análisis de factores que influyen sobre el uso de alcohol de niños: un path análisis prospectivo

“…Al respecto, distintos estudios han dado cuenta de la relación entre los rasgos de personalidad que refieren a la falta de control de impulsos como desinhibición (Anderson et al, 2005), agresividad (Hampson, Tildesley, Andrews, Luyckx, y Mroczek, 2010), extroversión (Hampson, Andrews, Barckley y Severson, 2006) y un mayor consumo de alcohol en niños. Por otro lado, las expectativas hacia el alcohol son definidas como las creencias acerca de los efectos positivos y negativos del alcohol sobre el comportamiento, estado de ánimo y las emociones (Goldman, Brown, Christiansen y Smith, 1991).…”

“…Para una revisión más completa de los diferentes factores asociados al uso de alcohol en la niñez y adolescencia ver revisiones de Brown et al, 2008de Brown et al, , 2009Masten et al, 2009;Windle et al, 2009;Zucker et al, 2008Zucker et al, , 2009 Asimismo, se ha buscado analizar de manera conjunta variables de diferentes dominios conceptuales como variables de personalidad y variables cognitivas y sociales. Por ejemplo, en un estudio longitudinal, Hampson et al (2006) observaron que, los niños con un mayor nivel de hostilidad y de sociabilidad, percibían entre sus pares un mayor consumo de alcohol. Los autores también observaron que un mayor nivel de sociabilidad predecía un mayor desarrollo de actitudes positivas hacia el consumo.…”

“…Los autores también observaron que un mayor nivel de sociabilidad predecía un mayor desarrollo de actitudes positivas hacia el consumo. Los autores concluyen que los rasgos de personalidad influyen de manera indirecta sobre la intención de tomar alcohol de los niños (Hampson et al, 2006).…”