Analysis of the Original Social Psychology Research Article - Essay Example

The research question pertains to finding out whether there is any difference in the influence between, parents, siblings, and friends’ use of alcohol on the frequency of alcohol use over time in adolescents and young adults, and whether the influences of parents, siblings, and friends were moderated by factors of age and sex.

The study hypothesizes that the frequency of alcohol use over time in adolescents and young adults are strongly influenced by parents, sibling, and friends. The study provides additional input on the influence of familial and friends on the use of alcohol in adolescents and young adults in three ways consisting of a simultaneous examination of this influence, differences in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, and the use of twin data. Data on monozygotic and dizygotic twins were employed to indicate genetic influence.

Data from the 1993, 1995, and 2000 surveys of the Netherlands Twin Register was used for this purpose. The frequency of drinking of the participants was ascertained through the use of a single question with eight response categories. The Netherlands Twin Register Survey provided data on the frequency of drinking among the parents, twins, and friends of the participant twins. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted on the data collected in 1993 to evaluate the cross-sectional influence of family members and friends on regular drinking in adolescents and young adults.

Multivariate logistic regression analyses for the short-term (1993 to 1995) longitudinal data, and for the long-term (1993 to 2000) longitudinal data were used to determine whether drinking habits in family and friends predicted consumption of alcohol in adolescents and young adults. The influence of drinking on the twin was assessed in data from 1995 and 2000. Cross-sectional multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that age and sex were significant factors in regular drinking, with the older age groups of 16-25, and 21-25 at higher risk than the younger age group of 12-15 and males were at higher risk than females in regular drinking.

Regular drinking of the father with regular or occasional drinking in the mother were higher risk factors than parents who did not drink. Higher risk was involved in having a co-twin who drank a few times a month, than a co-twin who never drank or drank rarely. Higher risk was also associated with having friends who drank regularly than friends who did not drink at all. Just as with the cross-sectional analyses, the short-term and long-term analyses associated higher risk in the higher age groups and for males.

Drinking mothers in 1993 posed a higher risk than drinking mothers in 1995 and 2005, though such an association in the case of fathers was not found. In a similar manner drinking parents in 1993 posed a higher risk than drinking parents in 1995 and 2005. The risks associated with the drinking of the co-twin in short-term longitudinal analyses were found to demonstrate a similar pattern as the cross-sectional analyses, though with lower odd ratios. Such an association was not seen in the long-term longitudinal analysis.

In the case of friends, short-term longitudinal analyses showed risk associated with having regular drinking friends than friends who did not drink at all, with diminished risk after seven years as shown in the long-term longitudinal analysis. Based on these findings the authors concluded that a very large part of the variance seen in regular drinking in adolescents and young adults was associated with drinking by family members and friends, with the stronger influence being that of co-twins and friends. However, alcohol consumption by family and friends did not contribute much to the prediction of regular drinking in adolescents and young adults over a two-year and seven-year period.