Stacy A W, Newcomb M D, Bentler P M
University of Southern California.
J Health Soc Behav. 1992 Sep;33(3):226-41.
The study of moderators and higher-order effects of social influences on drug use has many implications for theories of health behavior. In the present study, we investigated the longitudinal predictive effects of some of the prominent moderator variables that represent forms of susceptibility toward social influence in teenage drug use. We also studied the possibility that social influence may predict drug use in nonlinear (quadratic) forms, consistent with theories proposing that threshold or decelerating effects may occur in social influences on normatively sanctioned behaviors. Results showed that several of the interactive and quadratic predictive effects were significant. The findings supported the views that certain moderator variables act as buffers, which either protect the individual from social pressures to use drugs, or make the individual more susceptible to such pressures. In addition, two of the obtained quadratic effects of social influence lent support to the application of social impact theory to drug use. Overall, our findings suggest that interactive and nonlinear approaches to social influences on drug use provide a unique and viable theoretical perspective from which to construe this problem health behavior.
对社会影响对药物使用的调节因素和高阶效应的研究，对健康行为理论有诸多启示。在本研究中，我们调查了一些突出的调节变量的纵向预测效应，这些变量代表了青少年药物使用中对社会影响的易感性形式。我们还研究了社会影响可能以非线性（二次）形式预测药物使用的可能性，这与提出在对规范认可行为的社会影响中可能出现阈值或减速效应的理论一致。结果表明，几个交互作用和二次预测效应是显著的。这些发现支持了这样的观点，即某些调节变量起到缓冲作用，要么保护个体免受使用药物的社会压力，要么使个体更容易受到此类压力。此外，所获得的社会影响的两个二次效应为社会影响理论在药物使用中的应用提供了支持。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，对药物使用的社会影响采用交互作用和非线性方法，为解释这一健康行为问题提供了独特且可行的理论视角。
