Substance Use by Korean Adolescents: A Cross-Cultural Test of Social Learning, Social Bonding, and Self-Control Theories

Abstract

This chapter tests the empirical validity of social learning, social bonding, and self-control theories as explanations of adolescent substance use in a sample of urban adolescents in South Korea. Ronald L. Akers has argued that there is considerable conceptual overlap between concept of definitions favorable and unfavorable in social learning theory and the concept of belief in social bonding theory. The chapter examines the relative explanatory power of independent variables from each of the theories when all are placed in the same regression models. It examines how well social learning, social bonding, and self-control theories, proposed and developed by Western sociologists but tested mainly with samples of American youth, explains adolescent substance use in non-Western Asian society. The chapter concludes that the theories do apply in Korean society and in about the same way that they apply in American society. It shows that social learning theory has been consistently and substantially supported by research and can be taken globally.