Relationship Between Personality and Adolescent Drug Use: Effects of Substance Abusing Peers and Gender

Abstract

The goal of this paper was to explore whether sensation seeking and anger exert a direct and/or an indirect effect on adolescent lifetime cannabis and inhalant use through substance abusing peers. In addition, the purpose was to explore whether direct effects of these two personality factors are dependent on gender. Analyzed data were collected in 2012 from 394 students (186 boys, 193 girls, while 15 students didn't indicate their gender), aged between 15 and 17 years. In the case of lifetime cannabis use, mediation analyses showed the significance of the indirect effect of sensation seeking on this drug type use through substance abusing peers. Likewise, it was shown that sensation seeking and anger both exert direct effect on this drug type, but independently of gender. In the case of lifetime inhalant use, two personality factors do not exert indirect nor direct effect on this drug type use. In addition, these direct effects are not dependent on gender. Data presented in this paper elucidate risk pathways to cannabis and inhalant use, considering some possible differences between these risk pathways.