Sensation seeking and drug use by adolescents and their friends: Models for marijuana and alcohol

Objective: To investigate the prospective influence of individual adolescen ts' sensation seeking tendency and the sensation seeking tendency of named peers on the use of alcohol and marijuana, controlling for a variety of int erpersonal and attitudinal risk and protective factors. Method: Data were c ollected from a cohort of adolescents (N = 428; 60% female) at three points in time, starting in the eighth grade. Respondents provided information ab out sensation seeking, the positivity of family relations, attitudes toward alcohol and drug use, perceptions of their friends' use of alcohol and mar ijuana, perceptions of influence by their friends to use alcohol and mariju ana, and their own use of alcohol and marijuana. In addition, they named up to three peers, whose sensation seeking and use data were integrated with respondents' data to allow for tests of hypotheses about peer clustering an d substance use. Results: Structural equation modeling analyses revealed di rect effects of peers' sensation seeking on adolescents' of use of both mar ijuana and alcohol 2 years later. An unexpected finding was that the indivi dual's own sensation seeking had indirect (not direct) effects on drug use 2 years later. Conclusions: These findings indicate the potential importanc e of sensation seeking as a characteristic on which adolescent peers cluste r. Furthermore, the findings indicate that, beyond the influence of a varie ty of other risk factors, peer sensation seeking contributes to adolescents ' substance use.