Risk factors - family influence Flashcards
Families (i.e. parents, siblings) can influence addictive behaviour in two main ways:
Social Learning Theory
Expectancies
Social Learning:
the learning of behaviour by observation of role models in the environment. If the individual sees that model rewarded for their behaviour, then vicarious reinforcement is going to increase the likelihood of the observer imitating the behaviour.
For example…
Older same-sex siblings and same-sex parents often act as role models, as a result of identification. If the child pays attention to a role model in their family displaying an addictive behaviour, such as smoking, and a positive outcome is observed e.g. praise or attention, then vicarious reinforcement will occur. The individual will then be more motivated to imitate the addictive behaviour and may start to engage in the behaviour as a result e.g. start smoking.
Expectancies:
These are the associations (either positive or negative) we make from observing the environment around us, often our home environment.
For example, we may learn from our environment that if we drink a lot of alcohol then we will get ill (negative expectancies), because we witnessed our older brother consuming vast amounts of alcohol and vomiting as a result.
If positive expectancies are formed, then this can increase the likelihood of trying a substance or behaviour and influence the chances of becoming addicted.
Expectancies are a form of schema i.e. they develop through experience and govern our expectations in a given situation.
There is evidence that children’s expectancies of alcohol develop within the family environment.
Dunn and Goldman (1998) found that 7-18 year old children’s expectancies of alcohol mirrored those of adults.
This suggests that the adults in a child’s environment can heavily influence attitudes towards substance abuse and potentially addiction
Parents exert influence on their offspring’s addictive behaviour in two main ways:
1) They provide social models for their offspring
Reith and Dobie (2011): demonstrated 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.
Family InfluencesParental Influence
Reith and Dobie also found patterns of gambling were transmitted within families in gendered ways, with males’ first experience of gambling being through their fathers, and females’ through their mothers.
The types of gambling activity that individuals were introduced to in this way were also gendered, with females introduced mainly to machines and bingo, and males to sports betting.
According to Social Learning Theory, this supports the concept of IDENTIFICATION.
2) Parenting style
Certain parenting styles have been linked to likelihood of addiction, particularly the authoritative parent is linked to a decreased likelihood of addiction.
Authoritative parents combine parental warmth with appropriate parental control.
Authoritative parents emphasise setting high standards, being nurturing and responsive, and showing respect for children as independent, rational beings.
The authoritative parent expects maturity and cooperation, and offers children lots of emotional support. This helps children to develop resilience to addictive behaviours (Fletcher et al., 1995).
Studies have shown that the behaviour of older siblings is strongly associated with adolescent substance use.
The influence of siblings of the development of addictive behaviour can be explained as a product of modelling in the sibling relationship.
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.
Moreover, sibling influence has generally been shown to be STRONGER than parental influence when it comes to substance use.
In a sample of high school students in the US, sibling alcohol use had a stronger association with adolescent alcohol use than did parental alcohol use (Windle, 2000).
However, the influence of the family will vary depending on the age and the strength of relationship for an individual.
- It may be that at a younger age the influence of the family to try or abstain from a substance or behaviour could be much greater than in an older individual.
Younger individuals are arguably more suggestible and lack the necessary cognitions to reflect on the behaviour before imitating it.
Therefore family influence is not constant throughout the lifespan.
The stronger the relationship with the family member who engages in addictive behaviour, the greater the likelihood of imitation.
Mediating cognitive processes:
Not all behaviours observed are imitated e.g. a child may observe a parent smoking on a regular basis over a number of years, but this is no guarantee that they will smoke; there are important mediating cognitive processes that influence whether a behaviour is imitated or not.
Motivations to behave a certain way are affected by other influences, which may counteract the family influence e.g. knowledge that the behaviour carries health risks.
The relative influence of the family against all other potential influences is very difficult to gauge as measurement is extremely difficult
- it is not possible to isolate family influences to study their effect on the development of addictive behaviour.
Therefore, it is difficult to ascertain how family influences compare with peer influences – this is where age and strength of the relationship with family members needs to be considered, as arguably parents and siblings will have a greater influence when the child is younger.
Evaluation of Family Influences in the Development of Addiction
Research suggests that family influences and peer influences are not independent of one another, in that tolerant parental attitudes make it more likely that adolescents will seek the company of peers that endorse substance abuse.
Bahr et al. (2005) found that tolerant parental attitudes were strongly associated with an increased prevalence of binge drinking, smoking and drug use. They also found that parents who were tolerant of substance use were more likely to interact with peers who smoked, drank or used illicit drugs.
It is also possible that alcohol and drug use may result from a withdrawal of parental involvement, rather than any particular type of parent-adolescent interaction.
