Peer Pressure of Underage Drinking

Peer Context and the Consequences of Adolescent Drinking ROBERT CROSNOE, CHANDRA MULLER, KENNETH FRANK Social Problems, Vol. 51, No. 2 (May 2004), pp. 288-304 Past research has extensively researched adolescent drinking, mainly on the influences from their peers and other things causing this type of behavior. The main focus is examining how drinking is associated with other individuals routes and how it is related and varies by peer context. The National Study of Adolescent Health found that the engagement of alcohol is involved when under elevated amounts of distress or when academic achievement is declining. Unlike other research, this journal posits drinking as the predictor rather than the outcome. This study also examines whether the potential consequences of adolescent drinking vary by peer context. Adolescent drinking is viewed as a major societal problem and has generated a great deal of attention to the public and even in scholarly areas. This journal has two themes in viewing their research of adolescent drinking, one being that drinking is risky and more of a problem because adolescents are less equipped to drink responsibly than adults are. The second theme being that drinking is a largely social phenomenon, kids do it to just fit in its for gaining their status.

Media and Risky Behaviors Soledad Liliana Escobar-Chaves, Craig A. Anderson The Future of Children, Vol. 18, No. 1, Children and Electronic Media (Spring, 2008), pp. 147180 In this article Liliana Esccobar-Chaves and Craig Anderson investigate two important trends among American youth. Chaves and Anderson thing these two trends are possibly related, the first trend is that the youth spend increasing amounts of time using electronic media. The second trend that the authors demonstrated was that these adolescents are engaging in a number of unhealthy behaviors. One of these unhealthy risky behaviors happens to be drinking. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified these six critical unhealthy behaviors; physical inactivity, poor eating habits, smoking, alcohol use, sexual behaviors, and violence, which contribute to the leading causes of death and disability. The authors found that these issues are not done in isolation. These behaviors grow out of complex interactions at the individual, peer, family, school, community, and societal levels. Many observers has raised questions about adolescents being exposed to these types of behaviors on electronic media. American youth on average use six to eight hours of various forms of media in which these behaviors are exposed.

Parents involvement in Adolescents Peer Relationships: A comparison of Mothers and Fathers Roles Kimberly A. Updegraff, Susan M. McHale, Ann C. Crouter, Kristina Kupanoff Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Aug., 2001), pp. 655-668 This study involved the direct involvement of the mother and father in adolescent boys versus girls peer relationships. The other goal of this study was to examine the links between parents involvement and the qualities of adolescents friendship and peer experiences. Parents play a critical role in their childs life by encouraging interactions with other youth to develop social relationships and make potential friends. The focus of this research was based on parents direct efforts to guide their childs peer relationships. They supervise and manage their time with their peers, and studies have evolved that children benefit from more frequent and positive interactions with peers and higher levels of social acceptance are when parents are involved in these relationships. Through these experiments there is evidence that the security of mother-child attachment predicts young adolescents peer competence and friendship quality, the parenting styles also correspond with peer crowd affiliation. The family communication patterns are also related to adolescents friendship identity.

Alcohol Use Among High School Students-Georgia 2007 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vol. 58, No. 32 (August 21, 2009), pp. 885-890 This article is mainly statements of facts and statistics about alcohol consumption. The Georgia Division of Public Health analyzed data from a survey called Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This survey concludes all of the Georgia high school students that admitted they were currently drinking alcohol or admitted to binge drinking. In the survey some students reported they drink it at someone elses house, and others reported that alcohol is given to them. The results from this survey underscored the further research that was needed on underage drinking behavior, motives, and access to alcohol. This problem is going to try to be helped by enforcing the legal age limit of 21 and keeping the limits on certain days and times you can purchase alcohol. Although the legal drinking age is 21, from ages (12-20) drink nearly twenty percent of all the alcohol consumed in the United States. Excessive alcohol consumption in adolescents results in about 4,700 deaths each year.

Preventing and Reducing Underage Drinking Public Health Reports (1974-), Vol. 124, No. 1 (JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009), pp. 2-4 The former Acting Surgeon General RADM Kenneth Moritsugu wanted people to know the extent and nature of underage drinking and the consequences in this article. He also wanted to alert the audience that the minimum legal drinking age is 21. He also wanted to alert the public that specific evidence concluded that the adolescents brain will be susceptible to long -term negative consequences from alcohol use. This article includes that some factors that influence underage alcohol consumption is biological and cognitive changes, like sexual development and differential maturation. Moritsugus office has worked closely with other offices such as the Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free, the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to prevent and reduce underage drinking. He also focused on research on why students use alcohol differently from adults. He explains why adolescents acts a certain way towards it and why it opposes as an attraction to them with an unknown devastating outcome.

GPA, Depression, and Drinking: A Longitudinal Comparison of High School Boys and Girls
Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 351-376

The authors of this article test five hypotheses between the correlations of GPA, depression, and drinking between girls and boys in high school. They used longitudinal high school data from the Youth Development Study. The first hypothesis is that the GPA negatively affects drinking, but without consistent gender differences. Secondly, GPA also negatively affects depression, more strongly for girls. The third hypothesis states that drinking positively affects lagged depression, more strongly for girls. All of these hypotheses are related, and it shows that in this study the chain mostly effects girls. It also suggests that alcohol may provide divergent behavioral problems and emotional coping functions for boys and girls. Adolescents tend to cope different ways, some turning to alcohol to solve all of their problems. These behavioral responses can be short term or last long term. Teens school success, emotions, and alcohol use are inter-twined to where troubles in one area tend to affect the other areas.

Alcohol Marketing and Young Peoples Drinking: A Review of the Research

Journal of Public Health Policy, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2005), pp. 296-311

This journal is a representation of how alcohol marketing has an effect on young peoples drinking. There have been two types of research of alcohol advertising on consumption and has taken two principal forms which are econometric studies and consumer studies. The econometric studies involve a statistical examination of the relationship between overall levels of alcohol consumption. Consumer studies examine how peoples drinking knowledge, attitudes and behavior vary with their exposure to advertisements of alcohol. The econometric studies work suggests that alcohol advertising has a minimal effect when compared to other things on aggregate alcohol consumption. Someone researching this study found that the effect of advertising to be insignificant when compared to the influence of income, a follow-up study also revealed that advertising is to be of limited significance in terms of total consumption or demand. They use this case to support that advertising does not affect demand for alcohol.

Impulsive and Self-Conscious: Adolescents Vulnerability to Advertising and Promotion

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall, 2005), pp. 202-221

In this article the authors review basic research on adolescents and their development in marketing, and other things. They have concerns that marketers may be unfairly exploiting adolescents, particularly in tobacco and alcohol marketers. This concern is based off of the belief that adolescents may be especially susceptible to marketers influence attempts. The United States Department of Health and Human Services addressed this issue by reviewing basic research on adolescents cognitive and emotional development. This development has been conducted in three academic disciplines. These disciplines are neuroscience, psychology, and marketing. They have also examined how they U.S. tobacco and alcohol industries try to protect adolescents through self-regulation and the tobacco settlement only that the assumption is that adolescents are susceptible to influence by advertising. The main implication of this review is that policy official might want to comprehensive federal legislation to protect these adolescents from advertising and promotion for high-risk addictive products.

Alcohol Advertising and Youth: A Measured Approach

Journal of Public Health Policy, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2005), pp. 312-325

Alcohol industry self-regulation is the primary protection against youth exposure to alcohol advertising. Using commercially available databases, the Center on Alcohol and Youth has combined occurrence and audience data to calculate the data between adolescents and adults exposure to alcohol advertising on the tv and the radio, magazines, the internet, and other media sources. The research in the United States shows that alcohol companies have placed significant amounts of advertising where youth are more likely to be exposed to it than adults. Further tests have been run and it has been shown that much of the excess exposure of adolescent and youth to alcohol advertising in the United States could be eliminated if alcohol companies would adopt a threshold of a certain amount as the maximum to youth audience composition for their advertising. If they did this is would still leave much exposure to kids of alcohol marketing. Adolescent alcohol consumption is a representation of an international public health crisis.