Social Learning, Self-Control, and Substance Abuse by Eighth Grade Students: A Tale of Two Cities

Social learning theory has been used to explain substance abuse among adolescents literally from its inception in the 1960s. This theory suggests that basically good children learn to become substance abusers due to such social forces as internalized definitions supportive of delinquent behavior, the influence of delinquent peers, the presence of powerful social reinforcers, and the absence of adequate social punishers. Self-control theory, a more recent theoretical entry, has rather different views about adolescent misbehavior: children become delinquent owing to inadequate parenting and poorly developed self-controls. Taken together these two perspectives should provide unique insights into the self-reported substance abuse of eighth grade students in two rather different cities: Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, despite the considerable differences between the two cities. We address the following question: to what extent do social learning theory and self-control theory provide insights into the city-specific patterns of self-reported substance abuse. We also review the theoretical and policy implications of our findings.