Social Learning, Social Bonds, Self-Control and Adolescent Nicotine Vaping

Abstract

Objectives

The aim of this study was to examine whether three theories of adolescent substance use—social learning, social bonding, and self-control—were useful for predicting adolescent nicotine vaping. Methods: The analysis utilized data on U.S. 8th and 10th grade students from the 2017 and 2018 Monitoring the Future (MTF) studies, repeated cross-sectional surveys that included 11,624 youth who responded to questions about past 12-month nicotine vaping. Measures from each of the three theories were used to predict the outcome using a zero-inflated negative binomial model. Results: The results demonstrated that variables from social learning and self-control theories were key predictors of nicotine vaping. Friends’ substance use appeared as the most consequential predictor, followed by low self-control or higher risk-taking propensities. An interaction effect also suggested that friends’ substance use had a stronger association with nicotine vaping among youth who reported higher self-control. Conclusions/Importance: The findings suggested that adolescent nicotine vaping is a consequence of social learning influences and low self-control. Future research should explore these and similar factors in more detail.

Keywords:

• Adolescent vaping
• e-cigarettes
• social learning
• social bonds
• self-control
• risk-taking

Acknowledgments

I appreciate the guidance provided by the reviewers and to the Monitoring the Future staff for making the data available for this study. However, they bear no responsibility for any of the inferences drawn from my analyses.

Declaration of interest

The author reported no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1 A helpful reviewer noted that aggression might be a manifestation of low self-control and thus could be another indicator of the latent self-control construct. I examined this hypothesis by assessing the properties of all the latent constructs along with the observed aggression items. The aggression items do not load well with the self-control or the other latent constructs in the PCAs. In fact, friends’ substance use and parental supervision are more strongly associated with self-control than were the aggression items or their latent manifestation.