Perceived harm, age, and drug use: perceptual and motivational dispositions affecting drug use.

Free associations reveal a close relationship between drug use and such psychological dispositions as dominant perceptions, attitudes, and systems of mental representations. The investigations reported here address the relationship of perceived harm or appeal of drugs, age, and reported drug use through analysis of the free associations of students from elementary to graduate school. Subsamples of drug users and non-users are also included. Comparisons across the range of years studied (10 to 29) showed how subjective meanings and the system of mental representation, including those characteristic of drug users and non-users, evolve as a function of age. Based on the domains studied, the distance measured between user/non-user groups and between age groups showed systematic and predictable increases reflecting on construct validity. The perceptual and motivational dispositions identified were significantly correlated with drug use (behavioral validation). The results offer new insights into the role of such variables as perceived harm and subjective appeal.