Testing competing theoretical concepts: Adolescent alcohol consumption

A study was made of alcohol consumption among 1,093 adolescents who attended high schools in Baltimore, Maryland, Little Rock, Arkansas, or rural high schools in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Hierarchical regression procedures were used to test competing factors from social control and social learning theories. The significant predictors, in order of importance, were: (1) interaction between age and neutralizing definitions, (2) interaction between age and beliefs, (3) interaction between age and peer association, (4) religiosity, and (5) perception that the rewards of deviant acts outweighed the costs.