AN EXPLORATORY MULTIVARIATE APPROACH TO DRUG CONSUMPTION PATTERNS IN YOUNG PEOPLE BASED ON PRIMARY SOCIALIZATION THEORY

Abstract

Drug consumption patterns and their psychosocial conditioning factors are explored on the basis of Primary Socialization Theory (PST), through the application of a questionnaire to a representative sample (N = 650) of the young population (age 15 to 29 years) in the Madrid Region. Cluster analysis identifies five consumption groups. Discriminant analysis, including indicators about subject's integration in primary socialization environments, beliefs about the effects of drugs, indicators of psychosocial wellbeing, and variables related to leisure time, allows 67.45% of correct consumption group prediction. Complex associations between drug use, socialization environments and psychosocial wellbeing are found, calling into question approaches establishing cumulative or unidimensional relationships between posited “risk factors” and drug consumption.

• Drugs
• Young people
• Social psychology

Notes

¹For reasons of space it is not possible to show the factor eigenvalues, variable communalities and factor matrix derived from each analysis, though interested readers may obtain details of them from the authors.

²A detailed analysis of the variables “Frequency of going drinking” and “Frequency of going dancing”, which are those that most saturate the factor “Leisure activity of going dancing and drinking”, shows that this group presents lower involvement than the mean in the activity “Going drinking” (F = 55.87; p <.001) and, in contrast, higher involvement than the mean in the activity “Going dancing” (F = 5.96; p < 001).