The relationship of social context of drinking, perceived social norms, and parental influence to various drinking patterns of adolescents.

An anonymous questionnaire was administered to a sample of over 890 adolescent drinkers. The questionnaire contained measures of their social context of drinking, perceived social norms, and perceived parental behaviors regarding drinking. These measures were related to a variety of alcohol problem behaviors including binge drinking, driving while alcohol-impaired, riding with an alcohol-impaired driver, and experiencing one or more negative consequences because of drinking. Results indicated that drinking frequently in a social context of social facilitation, stress control or school defiance, as well as having close friends engage in these behaviors, tended to separate alcohol abusers from nonabusers. The implications for program development are discussed.