Sensation seeking and impulsivity: The direct and indirect effects on adolescent marijuana use

Abstract

Research over the past decades has found that adolescent drug use is intricately entwined with serious personal and social problems, including personality trait tendencies, peer pressure, family‐ and school‐related influences. Using structural equation modelling, this study tries to incorporate a set of personal and interpersonal factors to predict marijuana use among a sample of adolescents in two US cities. The study found that sensation seeking, rather than impulsive decision making contributes directly to adolescents' marijuana use, while their indirect contributions on marijuana use work through the interplay of demographic variables, risk and protective factors, the adolescents' beliefs and attitudes toward marijuana use, and the adolescents' intentions to using marijuana.