Sex and drugs and nuclear war: secular, developmental and type A influences upon adolescents' fears of the nuclear threat, AIDS and drug addiction.

Researchers are divided over the significance of teenagers' expressed fear of nuclear war. This study of 3556 secondary school pupils examined whether (1) fear of nuclear war remains a feature of adolescent concern during the current east-west détente; (2) the examination of responses in a large sample reveals age and sex differences in such expressed fears; (3) worry about 'real world' issues like nuclear war, AIDS and drug addiction relates more generally to Type A proneness in adolescents. The results suggest that fewer teenagers spontaneously raise fear of nuclear war than in previous "pre-Glasnost" research in Britain, that such concern is expressed differentially according to the child's age and sex and that secondary school pupils who express concern about nuclear war and AIDS are more likely to show significantly higher Type A identification.