With the pressure to try drugs and alcohol weighing heavily on many teenagers, one researcher at UB has been awarded a grant to find out what makes adolescents go under the influence.
Dr. Craig Colder, associate professor of psychology, recently received over $4.1 million in two separate grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
The first grant is funding a study entitled "Motivation in Context: Risk for Early Substance Use."
"The grants were given to our department in order for us to research what may promote or mitigate the substance abuse in adolescents," Colder said. "'Motivation in Context' will examine the motivational and self-regulatory aspects of adolescent development, and how these interact over time to influence attitudes about drugs and alcohol."
The first study Colder is conducting has three domains: the influence of the community, the influence of parents and the influence of the peers on children between the ages of 10-12.
"With the first domain, we are trying to obtain information about the subject's community; the amount of advertisements pertaining to drugs and alcohol, the availability of the substances, et cetera," Colder said.
The second domain entails the involvement of the parents in the children's lives, including their own potential use of drugs and alcohol, their opinions on it and how they planned on dealing with their children's potential use.
The third domain in Colder's study involves the peers of the subject.
"We will try to ascertain whether or not the peers in the subjects life are involved with substance use," Colder said. "We are trying to see if the substance use is initiated by their peers, or if it is started somewhere else."
The second study Colder will conduct is titled "Problem Behavior, Peers and Motivational Aspects of Temperament in Substance Use." It will analyze the role of problem behavior by examining the internalization of problems in the development of adolescent substance use.
"In this research for the second grant, we will use a data analysis technique that distinguishes components of variance, shared and unique, among the dimensions of child behavior problems," he said. "Part of the problem is differentiating who/and or what the substance use is initiated by. What leads to what? Or rather, what causes what, and what comes first for these kids. Finding this out is our main objective."
The second study will target 13-15 year olds based on random applicants throughout Erie County and will take course over the next five years. With the first study already underway, the second study will begin in the spring.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
