Monitoring the Future Survey/ Disapproval of Drug Use

Abstract

The Monitoring the Future Survey/ Disapproval of Drug Use scale is an internationally recognized psychometric instrument designed to measure personal normative standards and moral evaluations regarding the use of licit and illicit psychoactive substances among adolescents and young adults. Originating from the seminal Monitoring the Future (MTF) epidemiological research program at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, this measure quantifies personal disapproval across a spectrum of substances (including tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, powder cocaine, crack cocaine, MDMA/ecstasy, and heroin) under varying frequencies and intensities of consumption (experimental, occasional, and regular use). Comprising 16 core items evaluated on a 3-point Likert-type response format (1 = Don’t disapprove, 2 = Disapprove, 3 = Strongly disapprove, with an explicit non-substantive category for unfamiliarity), the scale evaluates both substance-specific attitudes and an omnibus latent construct of generalized drug disapproval. Psychometric evaluations across multiple decades of nationally representative cohorts demonstrate exceptional internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alphas frequently ranging from .82 to .95 across subscales and global indices), robust longitudinal measurement invariance, and strong predictive validity regarding individual-level consumption trajectories and macro-level secular epidemiological trends. This comprehensive academic review delineates the historical origins, theoretical foundations, psychometric architecture, structural validity, and research applications of the scale, underscoring its pivotal utility within developmental psychopathology, behavioral epidemiology, prevention science, and public health policy.

Keywords

Monitoring the Future, Disapproval of Drug Use, personal disapproval, adolescent substance use, normative attitudes, social norms, substance use epidemiology, cannabis attitudes, alcohol norms, tobacco disapproval, psychometrics, longitudinal survey, behavioral intention, risk perception

Authors

The scale was developed and refined by senior research scientists at the Survey Research Center within the Institute for Social Research (ISR), University of Michigan:

• Lloyd D. Johnston, Ph.D. — Distinguished Research Scientist Emeritus, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Principal Investigator of the Monitoring the Future project for over four decades.
• Patrick M. O’Malley, Ph.D. — Research Professor Emeritus, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Co-Principal Investigator, MTF.
• Jerald G. Bachman, Ph.D. — Research Professor Emeritus, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Co-founding investigator of the MTF study.
• John E. Schulenberg, Ph.D. & Richard A. Miech, Ph.D. — Contemporary Principal Investigators and Research Professors, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.

Institutional Contact Information:
Monitoring the Future Study
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
426 Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2321, USA
Email: [email protected] | Website: monitoringthefuture.org

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Monitoring the Future Survey/ Disapproval of Drug Use instrument is to measure an individual’s internal moral and normative threshold regarding the consumption of chemical substances. In contrast to measures that assess legal perceptions, perceived peer approval, or factual knowledge regarding pharmacology, this scale directly taps the respondent’s personal value orientation—operationalized as whether they morally, socially, or personal-normatively disapprove of someone engaging in specific drug-taking behaviors.

Understanding personal disapproval serves several critical scientific, clinical, and epidemiological functions:

• Etiological Modeling of Adolescent Substance Initiation: In developmental psychopathology, personal disapproval acts as a potent internal psychological barrier to drug experimentation. Longitudinal research consistently demonstrates that shifts in personal disapproval typically precede changes in actual consumption patterns, making it an indispensable early warning indicator for emerging epidemics.
• Epidemiological Surveillance and Trend Tracking: Administered annually since 1975 to nationally representative cross-sections of American secondary school students (8th, 10th, and 12th grades) and followed longitudinally into adulthood, the scale allows researchers to disaggregate cohort effects, period effects, and developmental (age) trajectories in moral attitudes toward psychoactive substances.
• Evaluation of Public Health Interventions: Universal and targeted prevention programs (such as mass media counter-advertising, classroom health curricula, and policy changes like tobacco age-of-purchase laws or recreational cannabis legalization) frequently aim to modify normative perceptions. The scale provides a standardized, psychometrically validated benchmark for evaluating whether interventions alter individual moral stances toward substance abuse.
• Testing Behavioral Decision-Making Theories: The scale enables health psychologists and sociologists to test structural models concerning how personal values interact with perceived risk, perceived availability, and social influence to determine human behavior.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the Disapproval of Drug Use scale is personal normative disapproval—the internal cognitive and affective condemnation of an act as inappropriate, unacceptable, or harmful. Within the taxonomy of social psychological constructs, personal disapproval represents an internalized prescriptive norm that operates as a direct antecedent of behavioral inhibition.

Distinction from Related Constructs

Psychometrically and theoretically, personal disapproval is distinct from several related attitudes:

• Perceived Risk (Harm Perception): While perceived risk measures cognitive expectations of negative physiological, legal, or social consequences (e.g., “How much do you think people risk harming themselves if they…?”), personal disapproval captures moral-affective censure (e.g., “Do YOU disapprove…?”). Although strongly correlated, an individual may perceive a behavior as risky yet not morally condemn it, or conversely, condemn a behavior even if personal physical harm is perceived as low.
• Perceived Peer Disapproval (Injunctive Social Norms): Perceived peer disapproval evaluates an individual’s perception of their close friends’ standards (e.g., “How do you think your close friends would feel if you…?”). The Disapproval of Drug Use scale isolates the internalized personal standard, filtering out conformist perceptions of peer consensus.
• Legal Sanction Perception: Disapproval measures personal normative illegitimacy rather than legal compliance. A respondent may strongly disapprove of non-illegal acts (e.g., heavy binge drinking or pack-a-day cigarette smoking among adults) or approve of technically illegal acts (e.g., experimental cannabis use).

Behavioral Intensity and Exposure Gradation

A distinctive feature of the construct operationalization is its sensitivity to dosage, frequency, and consumption method. The construct does not treat substance attitudes as binary (condemn vs. condone), but rather maps onto a Guttman-like progression of behavioral severity:

• Experimental Consumption: Defined as “trying once or twice.” Disapproval at this level signifies a rigid, zero-tolerance personal boundary.
• Occasional Consumption: Defined as non-daily, intermittent use. Endorsing disapproval here captures individuals who may tolerate curiosity but reject recreational habituation.
• Regular or Intensive Consumption: Defined as daily consumption, pack-a-day smoking, or episodic heavy binge drinking (e.g., “five or more drinks once or twice each weekend”). Even in populations with low disapproval of experimentation, regular or heavy use often evokes widespread normative condemnation.
• Route of Administration: For high-potency illicit narcotics like heroin, the construct differentiates between non-injection and injection drug use, capturing the profound social and health stigma attached to intravenous administration.

Theoretical Framework

The development and application of the Disapproval of Drug Use scale are anchored in several foundational theories of social psychology, sociology, and adolescent development.

1. The Theory of Planned Behavior and Reasoned Action

According to the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) formulated by Icek Ajzen, human behavior is driven by behavioral intentions, which are shaped by three core components: attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Within this paradigm, personal disapproval represents a direct operationalization of the individual’s evaluative attitude toward the behavior. An individual with high moral and normative disapproval of a drug holds a strongly negative attitude toward using it, substantially lowering the likelihood of forming an intention to initiate or sustain substance use.

2. Problem Behavior Theory

Developed by Richard Jessor and Shirley L. Jessor, Problem Behavior Theory posits that adolescent risk-taking emerges from dynamic interactions across three systemic domains: the Personality System, the Perceived Environment System, and the Behavior System. The Disapproval of Drug Use scale functions within the Personality System as a component of the “Personal Control Structure.” High personal disapproval serves as an internal regulatory mechanism that buffers youth against environmental instigations (such as deviant peer modeling or high drug availability), thereby preventing problem behaviors from manifesting.

3. Social Development Model

The Social Development Model (Catalano & Hawkins) integrates social control theory, social learning theory, and differential association theory. It asserts that bonding to prosocial institutions (family, school, conventional community) fosters the internalization of prosocial beliefs and standards. In this context, drug disapproval is viewed as an internalized prosocial value acquired through social reinforcement, bonding, and observational learning. When personal disapproval is high, adolescents reject antisocial and drug-using opportunities even in the absence of external monitoring.

4. Social Norms Theory

Social Norms Theory (Perkins & Berkowitz) emphasizes that adolescent health behaviors are heavily guided by perceived norms. By contrasting an adolescent’s personal disapproval with aggregate peer disapproval, researchers can identify “pluralistic ignorance”—a phenomenon where individuals privately disapprove of substance use but erroneously assume their peers condone it, inadvertently leading to behavioral conformity with a misperceived norm.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Monitoring the Future Disapproval of Drug Use items has been extensively established across more than four decades of empirical research involving hundreds of thousands of respondents.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by the scale’s capacity to reflect coherent, theoretically predicted latent dimensions. Confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) studies confirm that items load heavily on substance-specific factors as well as higher-order general drug disapproval dimensions. Furthermore, the Guttman-like hierarchy of items confirms that disapproval scores scale monotonically with behavioral frequency: across all surveyed cohorts, personal disapproval is systematically lowest for experimental use (“trying once or twice”), intermediate for “occasional” use, and highest for “regular” use.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity is documented through robust, statistically significant correlations with closely related theoretical constructs:

• Correlation with Perceived Harm: Disapproval correlates positively with perceived risk of harm (typical cross-sectional $r$ values range from $.45$ to $.70, p < .001$). Individuals who evaluate a drug as physically or socially hazardous are substantially more likely to report personal moral disapproval.
• Parental and Religious Values: Disapproval displays significant positive associations with religiosity (frequency of religious attendance, personal importance of religion; $r pprox .25 – .40$) and perceived parental disapproval ($r pprox .35 – .55$).
• Discriminant Distinctiveness: Multitrait-multimethod modeling and structural equation modeling (SEM) confirm that personal disapproval remains distinct from perceived availability of substances ($r pprox -.15$ to $-.25$), demonstrating that moral evaluation is not merely a proxy for structural access or physical availability.

Criterion and Predictive Validity

The predictive validity of the scale is exceptionally strong. Longitudinal prospective panel studies conducted by the MTF investigators indicate that adolescents who express high personal disapproval of a specific drug in 8th or 10th grade are markedly less likely to initiate use of that drug in subsequent years, after controlling for baseline demographics, peer use, and academic achievement (adjusted odds ratios typically ranging from $0.15$ to $0.40$).

Furthermore, at the population level, macro-epidemiological analyses demonstrate that secular shifts in national disapproval rates consistently precede or coincide with secular shifts in national prevalence rates. For instance, the dramatic rise in adolescent cannabis use during the 1990s was preceded by an acute erosion of personal disapproval and perceived risk in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Similar lead-lag relationships have been documented regarding adolescent cigarette smoking and cocaine epidemics.

Reliability

The Disapproval of Drug Use scale exhibits high reliability across diverse demographic strata, survey modalities, and longitudinal waves.

Internal Consistency

When evaluated as discrete subscales or combined into composite indices, the scale exhibits high internal consistency reliability:

• Illicit Drug Disapproval Subscale: Items tapping disapproval of illicit substances (powder cocaine, crack, heroin, ecstasy) routinely demonstrate Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients between $.88$ and $.94$, reflecting a unified latent evaluation of hard illicit narcotics.
• Cannabis Disapproval Subscale: The three-item cannabis continuum (trying once/twice, occasional, regular) yields Cronbach’s alphas consistently between $.82$ and $.89$.
• Alcohol Disapproval Subscale: Items assessing varying levels of alcohol intake (1-2 drinks daily, 4-5 drinks daily, weekend binge drinking) demonstrate alpha coefficients between $.78$ and $.86$.
• Total Drug Disapproval Index: When all 16 items are aggregated to create an omnibus metric of substance use disapproval, the composite Cronbach’s alpha routinely exceeds $.90$ (often $.92 – .95$), indicating high overall item homogeneity.

Test-Retest Stability

In longitudinal panel follow-ups re-interviewing MTF respondents at 1-year and 2-year intervals, test-retest stability coefficients ($r_{tt}$) remain high, typically ranging from $.65$ to $.80$ for illicit substances and $.55$ to $.72$ for licit substances. These values reflect the appropriate balance of a stable normative trait that nonetheless remains sensitive to developmental transitions (such as entering college or the workforce).

Measurement Invariance

Multiple-group CFA studies have established strict measurement invariance (configural, metric, and scalar invariance) across genders (male vs. female), major racial/ethnic groups (White, Black, Hispanic), and educational tracks. This confirms that observed differences in disapproval scores reflect true differences in normative evaluations rather than differential item functioning (DIF) or measurement bias.

Factor Analysis

Extensive factor analytic investigations of the Disapproval of Drug Use inventory have supported both multidimensional and hierarchical (bifactor) structural models.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Early exploratory factor analyses using principal axis factoring with oblique (promax or direct quartimin) rotations consistently extract three to four correlated primary factors accounting for over 65% of the total variance:

• Factor 1: Illicit / Hard Drug Disapproval: Comprising cocaine powder, crack, heroin, and MDMA/ecstasy items. Item factor loadings on this dimension are uniformly high, typically ranging from $.75$ to $.92$.
• Factor 2: Cannabis Disapproval: Encompassing experimental, occasional, and regular cannabis consumption, with standardized loadings ranging from $.70$ to $.88$.
• Factor 3: Heavy Alcohol Consumption Disapproval: Loading heavily on weekend binge drinking and daily heavy drinking (loadings $.65 – .85$). Light drinking (“trying one or two drinks”) often cross-loads or forms an isolated threshold indicator.
• Factor 4: Tobacco Disapproval: Encompassing pack-a-day cigarette smoking and regular smokeless tobacco use (loadings $.68 – .82$).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In modern psychometric structural evaluations using full information maximum likelihood (FIML) or robust weighted least squares (WLSMV) estimation for categorical indicators, a four-factor oblique model and a second-order hierarchical model exhibit superior goodness-of-fit indices across national samples:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values consistently range between $.955$ and $.982$.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Values consistently exceed $.950$.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates typically range from $.032$ to $.048$ (with 90% confidence intervals well below the conventional .06 threshold).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values consistently fall below $.040$.

Bifactor modeling further reveals that a strong general factor ($G$-factor of Generalized Substance Disapproval) accounts for a high proportion of common variance (Explained Common Variance, $ECV > .60$), supporting the empirical practice of reporting both domain-specific subscale scores and a global substance disapproval composite.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The specifications of the Disapproval of Drug Use inventory are structured as follows:

• Instrument Name: Monitoring the Future Survey / Disapproval of Drug Use Scale (DDUS)
• Construct Measured: Personal normative disapproval of licit and illicit substance consumption across distinct usage frequencies and intensities.
• Test Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire or computerized survey battery.
• Target Population: Secondary school students (adolescents in grades 8, 10, and 12), college students, and adults (ages 19–65+).
• Number of Items: 16 core items.
• Item Stem: “Do YOU disapprove of people doing each of the following?”
• Response Format: 3-point scale: 1 = Don’t disapprove, 2 = Disapprove, 3 = Strongly disapprove (Can’t say, drug unfamiliar is treated as missing or separate option).
• Scoring Procedures:
  • Subscale / Individual Item Analysis: In epidemiological surveillance, items are frequently evaluated individually as percentage endorsing “Disapprove” or “Strongly disapprove” (dichotomous prevalence metric), or as mean item scores ranging from 1.00 to 3.00.
  • Composite Scoring: Items can be summed or averaged within pharmacological classes (e.g., Cannabis Disapproval, Alcohol Disapproval, Illicit Drug Disapproval) or aggregated across all 16 items to generate a Global Substance Disapproval Index. Higher composite scores indicate stronger normative condemnation of substance use.
  • Handling Unfamiliarity: The response option “Can’t say, drug unfamiliar” must be treated as system-missing in numerical analyses or coded into an independent “unfamiliarity” categorical covariate to prevent distortion of moral disapproval metrics.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Test Year: The scale was conceptualized and initiated in 1975 as part of the inaugural Monitoring the Future baseline assessment of high school seniors, with expanded secondary school cohorts (grades 8 and 10) integrated in 1991. Core measure compilations were formally published in subsequent federal monographs, including the landmark 2001 National Institute on Drug Abuse reports and CSAP Core Measures.
• Copyright and Accessibility: The Monitoring the Future survey instrument is developed under research grants funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (Grant Numbers R01 DA001411 and R01 DA01657), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Because it is developed using federal research funding, the items reside primarily in the public domain for scientific, educational, and public health research purposes.
• Fee: There are no fees or licensing charges required for academic researchers, non-profit institutions, or clinicians utilizing the scale for non-commercial epidemiological or prevention studies.
• Usage Conditions & Attribution: Researchers intending to employ the instrument are expected to cite the original developers (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, Schulenberg, & Miech) and acknowledge the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research in published scholarship. Access to historical datasets and questionnaire forms is curated via the National Addiction & HIV Data Archive Program (NAHDAP) at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).

References

• Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
• Bachman, J. G., Johnston, L. D., & O’Malley, P. M. (1998). Explaining recent increases in students’ marijuana use: Impacts of perceived risks and disapproval, 1976 through 1996. American Journal of Public Health, 88(6), 887–892. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.88.6.887
• Catalano, R. F., & Hawkins, J. D. (1996). The social development model: A theory of antisocial behavior. In J. D. Hawkins (Ed.), Delinquency and crime: Current theories (pp. 149–197). Cambridge University Press.
• Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. (2001). Core Measures Initiative Phase I Recommendations (pp. 47–49). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
• Jessor, R., & Jessor, S. L. (1977). Problem behavior and psychosocial development: A longitudinal study of youth. Academic Press.
• Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., & Bachman, J. G. (2001). Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2000: Volume I, Secondary school students (NIH Publication No. 01-4924). National Institute on Drug Abuse. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED458461.pdf
• Miech, R. A., Johnston, L. D., Patrick, M. E., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2023). Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2022: Secondary school students. Monitoring the Future Monograph Series. Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan. https://doi.org/10.3998/2027.42/179262
• Perkins, H. W., & Berkowitz, A. D. (1986). Perceiving the community norms of alcohol use among students: Some research implications for campus alcohol education programming. International Journal of the Addictions, 21(9-10), 961–976. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826088609077249

Items of the Scale