risk factors: family influence

Question 1

AO1: Family influence

Answer 1

Relation to addiction
Gambling example
Parental influences
Sibling influence

Question 2

Family influence relation to addiction

Answer 2

social learning theory suggests behaviours are learned through observation of the people an individual has the most social contact with.

Question 3

Example of family influence in gambling

Answer 3

Reith and Dobbie:

The importance of the family in the transmission of gambling behaviour. Drawing on interviews with 50 gamblers, they found that gambling knowledge and behaviour was passed on through the routines of everyday life. Individuals watched and heard family members doing and talking about their gambling and eventually joining in with it.

Question 4

Parental influences

Answer 4

Parents exert influence on their offsprings addictive behaviours in 2 ways:

1) provide social models for their offspring
2) via style of parenting

Question 5

Social models to offspring

Answer 5

• Adolescents with substance abusing parents are more likely to abuse themselves
• Patterns of gambling transmitted through families
  eg fathers with their sons (sports betting) , mothers with their daughters (bingo)

Question 6

Style of parenting

Answer 6

1)Degree of parental control (how much a parent intervenes in their child’s life)

2) Parental warmth (how much positive affect a parent shows for their child)

Authoritative parents show warmth but also exert appropriate control. This style of parenting is assoc w lowered levels of substance abuse

Question 7

Sibling influence

Answer 7

Studies have shown that the behaviour of older siblings is strongly associated with adolescent substance
use. In fact, sibling influence has generally been shown to be stronger than parental influence when it comes to substance use and deviant behaviour in general.

The influence of siblings appears to be a product of modelling, The power imbalance between older and younger siblings suggests that older siblings serve as ‘role models’ for the younger sibling.
Because modelling normalises substance use, it is likely that younger siblings would gravitate towards peers who resemble and validate their older siblings’ behaviour.

Question 8

AO3:

Answer 8

str: support for the role of family influences
lim/ str: siblings overlooked

Question 9

str: support for the role of family influences

Answer 9

There is evidence for the importance of family influences on substance abuse
and addictive behaviour.

Bahr et al found that the family characteristics that were most strongly
associated with an increased prevalence of binge drinking, smoking and drug use were tolerant parental attitudes and sibling substance abuse.
They also found that adolescents with parents who were tolerant of substance use were more likely to interact with peers who smoked, drank or used illicit drugs.

These findings support that family influences and peer influences are not independent of each other, in that tolerant parental attitudes make it
more likely that adolescents will seek the company of peers that endorse substance abuse, potentially further the addiction.

Question 10

lim/str: siblings overlooked

Answer 10

Most attempts at family intervention relating to substance use in adolescents target only parents rather than siblings.

Interventions targeted only at the adolescent user or their parents could be undermined
by sibling influences, given that older siblings are more likely to be engaged in
antisocial and substance use behaviours than their younger siblings, and therefore
more likely to be the main source of influence for them.

The implication of this is that failure to address sibling influences is likely to hinder efforts to reduce early substance use and later substance
dependence. Consequently, siblings should also be targeted in family interventions relating to substance use.