Parenting Practices as Moderators of the Relationship between Peers and Adolescent Marijuana Use.

Using data from, a probability sample of 4,987 adolescents, we examine the degree to which closeness to mother, closeness to father, parental support, and parental monitoring buffer the relationship between peer drug use and adolescent marijuana use. The relationship between peer drug use and adolescent marijuana use was attenuated by both closeness to father and the perception that parents would catch them for major rule violations. These findings confirm the value of conceptualizing certain family characteristics as separate variables and verify that authoritative parenting may help insulate adolescents from peer pressure to use drugs. Key Words: adolescent marijuana use, authoritative parenting, closeness to parents, parental monitoring. Theoretically, family and peer relations are two of the most important socializing forces affecting adolescent behavior. Through these relationships, adolescents learn to conform to or deviate from societal standards. For example, associations with drug-using peers have consistently been one of the strongest predictors of adolescent substance use, second only to previous drug experimentation (Brook, Brook, & Richter, 2001; Reed & Rountree, 1997; Thornberry & Krohn, 1997). In addition, researchers have identified a number of family characteristics associated with the likelihood of drug use, particularly parental support and control (Hawkins, Catalane, & Miller, 1992; Jessor, 1987; Kandel, 1996; Peterson & Hann, 1999; Wright, Cullen, & Wooldrege, 2000). Although researchers have verified the importance of peer factors in predicting drug use, the findings regarding family characteristics have been inconsistent (Wright & Cullen, 2001). In some studies, family factors had negative associations with the probability that an adolescent will use drugs (Brook, Brook, Gordon, Whiteman, & Cohen, 1990; Jessor, Chase, & Donovan, 1980; Marshal & Chassin, 2000), whereas in others, the coefficients of family characteristics were small or insignificant, net of peer influences (Aseltine, 1995; Bahr, Maughan, Marcos, & Li, 1998; Hoffmann & Su, 1998). One possible reason for this inconsistency is the different conceptual models used to study how parents influence their children's drug use. In much existing research, a direct model was used in which parental characteristics were tested against peers to see which was a stronger predictor of adolescent drug use (Hoffmann, 1993). Newcomb (1992) referred to this approach as a tug-of-war between pro- and antidrug forces, the winner of which was assumed to have the greater influence on whether an individual will become involved with drugs. In this tug-of-war, peers consistently had stronger associations with adolescent drug use than family variables (Brook et al., 2001; Hoffmann; Wills, Mariani, & Filer, 1996). In some research, family characteristics had only small or negligible associations with adolescent drug use (Bahr et al., 1998; Seydlitz, 1993). An alternative model is to examine family characteristics as moderators that may attenuate the relationship between peers and adolescent drug use (Brook et al., 1990; Mason, Cauce, Gonzonles, & Hiraga, 1994). In Coombs, Paulson, and Richardson's (1991) study, for example, it was reported that drug-oriented peers had less influence on adolescents who had close relationships with their parents. Similarly, Vitaro, Brendgen, and Tremblay (2000) and Wills and colleagues (1996) observed that family support tended to moderate or lessen the influence of peers on delinquency and drug use. Stacy, Newcomb, and Rentier (1992) discovered that moderators have received relatively little attention in the study of social influences on drug use. One of the needs in adolescent drug research is to explore more fully whether and to what extent family variables moderate the relationship between peers and adolescent drug use. Two family variables found to be associated with adolescent drug use are parental support and control. …