The contamination of young people's notions about narcotics and psychoactive substances as a threat to psychological security

Abstract

The study described in this article investigated contemporary young people's perceptions of drugs and psychoactive substances (PAS). In the course of the research the following hypothesis was tested: in young people's perceptions about drugs and PAS there are differences in emotional coloring, coherence, and tolerance. J.-C. Abric's structural approach was used as the basic methodology. The free-associations method provided the bulk of the empirical material. The results obtained were processed via prototypic analysis (by P. Vergès's method), indexing of emotional associations (by E.E. Pronina's method), and frequency and content analysis. As a result the core and the periphery of the perceptions of youth about drugs and PAS were described, and generalized notional categories that synthesize the structural elements of the perceptions were identified. The study revealed that the perceptions of young people about drugs and PAS do differ in coherence, tolerance, and emotional coloring. Perceptions of drugs are firm, consistent, and negative, while perceptions of PAS are less coherent but dynamic and have an ambivalent emotional coloration. The results are of prognostic importance for understanding young people's attitudes toward drugs and PAS and can be used to design programs and measures directed to the prevention of PAS and drug abuse.