Perceived Risk and Social Norms Associated with Alcohol, Tobacco, and Marijuana Use in Argentinean Teenagers

Abstract

This study examined the association of social norms (i.e., descriptive and injunctive norms) and perceived risk with alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use in a sample of 378 Argentinean adolescents (60.3% girls, mean age 15.26 [SD = 1.26]). We conducted descriptive, correlation, and multivariate (i.e., hierarchical regression) analyses to describe substance use and examine the association of social norms and perceived risk with the frequency of heavy episodic drinking, tobacco, and marijuana. Perceived risk, injunctive norms, and descriptive peer norms were associated with frequency of substance use. Parental, but not peer, injunctive norms were associated with heavy alcohol use while peer injunctive norms were associated with tobacco and marijuana use. Findings suggest that increasing parent’s disapproval of substance use, reducing biases on descriptive and injunctive social norms on substance use, or increasing the perceived risk associated with such use may be valuable potential targets in interventions to reduce/prevent underage substance use.