Social skills, expectancies, and drinking in adolescents.

Research in the field of teenage drinking behavior has shown relationships between both social skills and drinking and alcohol expectancies and drinking. The present research investigated the comparative power of both of these sets of variables in predicting teenage drinking behavior, as well as looking at the contribution of more global cognitive structures. It was hypothesised that adolescents with high alcohol involvement would be discriminated from those with low involvement on the basis of social skills, cognitive structures, and alcohol expectancies. Seven hundred thirty-two adolescents participated in the study. Results indicated that adolescent alcohol involvement was associated with social skills deficits, positive alcohol expectancies, and negative cognitive structures concerning parents and teachers. The results revealed that, although the bulk of the variance in drinking behavior was explained by the independent effects of social skills and expectancies, the interaction of the two constructs explained an additional and significant proportion of the variance. Implications for preventive and treatment programs are discussed.

An exploration of the relationship between expression of hostility and the anxiety disorders.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate differences between four anxiety disorder groups with respect to their levels of hostility. Patients with diagnoses of panic disorder, agoraphobia with panic, generalized anxiety disorder and social phobia were compared as regards their performance on the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ). Results showed that while the groups did not differ on their extrapunitiveness, there were significant differences on intropunitive scores, with social phobics showing the most self criticism and guilt, followed in order by the agoraphobics with panic, generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder subjects. Scores on the Anxiety Symptoms and Consequences Scale were used to predict intropunitiveness and extrapunitiveness for each diagnostic group. Results showed that intropunitiveness was related to anxiety symptoms differently for each diagnostic group. Overall, the study indicates that intropunitive hostility may be an important feature of anxiety disorders, especially panic with and without agoraphobia, and that the finding is worth further exploration with longitudinal studies.

The relationship between social skills and adolescent drinking.

Studies of the drinking patterns of Australian youth have revealed the widespread use of alcohol, with substantial numbers of high school students drinking on a daily basis and regularly becoming intoxicated. The present research investigated the relationship between social skills and drinking behaviour in teenagers. The Adolescent Alcohol Involvement Scale was administered to 82 males and females aged between 13 and 16 to distinguish among drinkers, problem drinkers and non-drinkers. To measure social skills, the Adolescent Problem Inventory was administered to boys and the Problem Inventory for Adolescent Girls to girls. There were significant group differences on the social skills measures with non-drinkers receiving the highest scores, indicating the most social skills, followed by drinkers and problem drinkers. An analysis of results showed that 11% of drinkers and 50% of problem drinkers were in the incompetent range of social skills performance while no non-drinkers scored in this range. None of the problem drinkers scored in the highly competent range of performance whereas 22% of drinkers and 40% of non-drinkers did. Results are discussed in terms of linking a number of problem behaviours in adolescence, such as drinking, smoking and delinquent behaviour, to deficits in social skills.

Factors associated with smoking behavior in adolescent girls.

This study investigated the relationship between smoking in adolescent girls and levels of social skills, parental smoking, peer smoking and academic achievement. A Smoking Data Survey was administered to 143 girls aged between 12 and 16 to distinguish smokers and nonsmokers and to gain information about parents' smoking behavior, peers' smoking behavior, and the subjects' academic achievement. A second questionnaire, the Problem Inventory for Adolescent Girls, was also administered to determine subjects' levels of social skills. A multiple discriminate analysis was performed on the variables of social skills score, socioeconomic status, mothers' smoking behavior, fathers' smoking behavior, number of peers who smoke and average school grade achieved. Results demonstrated significant differences between the two groups, smokers and nonsmokers, p less than .0001. A series of univariate F tests showed significant group differences between smokers and nonsmokers on the variables of social skills score, mothers' smoking behavior, number of peers who smoke, and average school grade achieved. Smokers, compared to nonsmokers, had lower social skills scores, a higher percentage of them had mothers and friends who smoke, and they achieved lower grades overall than nonsmokers.