The applicability of social control theory in understanding adolescent alcohol use

Utilizing panel data on 345 high school students, this study investigates the efficacy of social control theory in accounting for adolescent orientations toward alcohol use. The findings suggest that the differing informal control mechanisms under consideration place varying constraining influences upon adolescent alcohol use, and upon problems which arise in the lives of adolescents as a consequence of their drinking, throughout the three high, school years. Similarly, alcohol use and its attendant problems are generally found to be associated with a decrease in the strength of adolescents’ bonds to conventionality, though these influences differ in degree from year to year as well.