Parental Influences on Substance Use: Gender Differences and Stage Theory

Abstract

The relationship between perceived parental drug use and offspring drug use was investigated. The subjects, 106 UCLA undergraduates, were evenly divided between psychoactive mushroom users and nonusers who completed a questionnaire regarding social and subjective aspects of drug use, including parental drug use. The data were analyzed using modern psychometric scaling techniques, including multidimensional unfolding and principal component analysis of qualitative variables (PRINQUAL). These techniques are advocated as preferable to discriminant analysis when variables, such as perceived parental use of different drugs, are highly correlated. Men's use of drugs was relatively independent of perceived parental drug use while women's use of drugs was strongly related to perceived parental usage. Guttman scaling and PRINQUAL analysis of the types of drugs indicate that the use of cocaine has changed since Kandel and Faust suggested the stage theory of adolescent drug use and that cocaine use has developed patterns similar to marijuana use.