The Impact of Adolescent Perceptions of the Future on Substance Abuse
- Presenter:
Chair: Jose Escarce; Discussant: David Bishai Mon June 5, 2006 15:30-17:00 Room 225
Background: Understanding how perceptions of uncertainty and risk affect behavior is important for the economic analysis of substance abuse and for designing and targeting prevention efforts. This is particularly relevant for adolescents, who may be more likely to deviate from the classical rational choice model of economics by misperceiving risk and future uncertainty.
Objective: The primary hypothesis is that some adolescents have mistaken perceptions about future uncertainty that affect the likelihood that they use illicit drugs. If an adolescent is overly pessimistic, that is, her belief that an event will transpire is much greater than the actuarial likelihood of the event occurring, her expected future utility will be lower . Therefore we would expect her to be more likely to engage in activities with potential adverse consequences for the future, such as illicit drug use.
Methods: We used the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY-97) to examine marijuana utilization as a function of perceptions of future risk, controlling for demographic characteristics and other social and environmental factors. The sample was restricted to adolescents who did not use marijuana at Wave 1. Outcome variables were initiation of marijuana use by Wave 4 and frequency of use at Wave 4. Perceptions of future risk were measured using self-reported chances of dying within the next year and before age 20. The actuarial probability of dying within this time frame was calculated from Social Security life tables.
Results: Approximately 30 percent of wave 1 respondents reported a probability of dying within 1 year of 0, which is the correct response in expectation. Adolescents who overestimated their risk of dying in 1 year were significantly more likely to initiate marijuana use by wave 4 than similar adolescents who assessed the risk of death more accurately (26.8% vs. 21.8% for death within 1 year), and significantly more likely to smoke marijuana on a regular basis at Wave 4 (8.8% vs. 7.9%).
Adolescents with a self reported risk of dying within one year of 1-10 percent, 11-20 percent, and 21-30 percent are significantly more likely to initiate marijuana use by Wave 4 than those who report a risk of 0, but there is no significant relationship between higher self-reported probabilities of dying and marijuana initiation. For regular marijuana use, only the teenagers who report a 1-year mortality risk of 1-10 percent have significantly higher rates of use than similar teens who report no risk of dying in the next year. Results are similar but less significant when the probability of dying by age 20 is used instead.
Conclusions: Adolescents’ perceptions of mortality risk are correlated with future use of illicit drugs, which has implications for targeting prevention efforts at teenagers most at risk for substance abuse. Further research is needed to explore whether the lack of correlation between very high reported probabilities of death and substance abuse is a result of the high responses being protest or careless responses rather than miscalculations of risk.
