Parental Attitudes Toward Drug Use — Seattle Social Development Project

1. Abstract

The Parental Attitudes Toward Drug Use subscale, developed within the longitudinal framework of the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP) and subsequently integrated into the widely implemented Communities That Care (CTC) Youth Survey, is a brief psychometric instrument designed to measure adolescent perceptions of parental disapproval and normative standards regarding youth substance use. Rooted in the Social Development Model (SDM), the instrument assesses a foundational family-domain protective factor: explicit parental norms opposing adolescent involvement in alcohol consumption, tobacco cigarette smoking, and cannabis/marijuana use. The instrument consists of three core items presented with the stem: “How wrong do your parents feel it would be for you to…”, evaluated on a 4-point Likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (Not wrong at all) to 4 (Very wrong). Psychometric investigations across diverse longitudinal cohorts and cross-sectional community-wide epidemiological samples demonstrate robust internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely ranging from α = .78 to α = .88) and clear unidimensional factor structure. The scale exhibits strong construct validity, characterized by negative longitudinal associations with adolescent substance initiation, binge drinking, frequency of illicit substance use, and peer substance association, alongside positive correlations with general parental monitoring, clear family rules, and youth-family bonding. As cataloged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Compendium of Assessment Tools, this assessment serves as a critical surveillance, diagnostic, and evaluation tool for preventive interventions, community risk profiling, and structural family research.

2. Keywords

Parental attitudes toward drug use, Seattle Social Development Project, Communities That Care, Social Development Model, adolescent substance use, perceived parental disapproval, risk and protective factors, family norms, psychometrics, youth prevention science.

3. Authors

The scale was developed and psychometrically refined by principal investigators and research scientists affiliated with the Social Development Research Group (SDRG) at the University of Washington School of Social Work in Seattle, Washington, USA:

• J. David Hawkins, Ph.D. — Endowed Professor Emeritus of Prevention, School of Social Work, University of Washington; Founding Director of the Social Development Research Group (SDRG).
• Richard F. Catalano, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Social Work, School of Social Work, University of Washington; Co-founder of SDRG and co-developer of the Social Development Model.
• Michael W. Arthur, Ph.D. — Research Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology and SDRG, University of Washington; Lead psychometrician on the Communities That Care Youth Survey validation.
• John A. Pollard, Ph.D. — Quantitative Methodologist and Senior Research Scientist, Social Development Research Group, University of Washington.
• A. J. Baglioni Jr., Ph.D. — Quantitative Analyst and Psychometric Consultant, School of Social Work, University of Washington.

Institutional Contact for Research Inquiries: Social Development Research Group (SDRG), School of Social Work, University of Washington, 9725 3rd Ave NE, Suite 401, Seattle, WA 98115, USA. Website: https://www.sdrg.org/.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Parental Attitudes Toward Drug Use scale is to quantify an adolescent’s subjective perception of their parents’ or primary caregivers’ moral and behavioral proscriptions against youth substance consumption. Developed as part of a comprehensive etiology-driven public health framework, the measure addresses the critical developmental bridge between familial socialization and adolescent behavioral self-regulation. Extrapolating from behavioral epidemiology, the family system represents the primary socialization context during early childhood, transitioning into a key buffering system during middle school and high school when adolescents encounter escalating exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.

From an applied prevention science perspective, this scale fulfills several interlinked objectives:

• Epidemiological Surveillance and Community Needs Assessment: Within the Communities That Care (CTC) operating system, community prevention coalitions use this instrument to audit the prevalence of family-level risk and protective factors across student populations in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12. Identifying elevated proportions of youth who perceive permissive or ambivalent parental norms provides actionable data directing public health investments into evidence-based parent training programs.
• Evaluating Preventive Interventions: Family-focused preventive interventions—such as the Guiding Good Choices program (formerly Preparing for the Drug-Free Years) and the Strengthening Families Program—seek specifically to equip parents with skills to establish clear family standards, communicate explicit anti-substance norms, and enforce consistent consequences. This scale serves as a standardized primary or secondary outcome measure to ascertain whether parental intervention components successfully alter youth perceptions of parental attitudes.
• Etiological and Developmental Modeling: In longitudinal cohort research, psychometricians and developmental psychopathologists employ the scale to model causal pathways leading from parental communication and attachment to the internalization of conventional values, resistance to peer pressure, and eventual abstinence or delayed onset of substance experimentation.

By capturing the adolescent’s perspective rather than relying solely on parent self-report, the tool bypasses parental social desirability bias. Empirical studies demonstrate that an adolescent’s behavioral choices are more strongly governed by their cognitive appraisal of parental standards than by parents’ uncommunicated personal beliefs. Thus, measuring the child’s appraisal provides superior predictive power regarding adolescent behavioral outcomes.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by this instrument is perceived parental disapproval of substance use, conceptualized as a protective factor within the family domain. This construct represents an internalized cognitive schema regarding familial normative climate and behavioral expectations. It is not merely a record of passive parental opinion; rather, it reflects the degree to which an adolescent perceives that engaging in substance-using behaviors would violate explicit, emotionally consequential, and authoritative familial boundaries.

In developmental psychopathology, family norms operate across multiple operational dimensions:

• Normative Clarity and Explicitness: The construct taps the clarity with which parents communicate behavioral taboos. Ambiguity in parental expectations (e.g., an adolescent believing their parents view occasional drinking as a harmless “rite of passage”) is psychologically differentiated from unambiguous disapproval. The scale items measure the perceived categorical severity of parental condemnation across distinct substance classes (regular alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, and marijuana usage).
• Anticipated Relational Sanctions: Underlying the response spectrum from “Not wrong at all” to “Very wrong” is the adolescent’s anticipation of emotional, relational, or disciplinary consequences. When a youth reports that parents would consider an act “Very wrong,” the appraisal indicates that such behavior would disrupt parent-child attachment bonds, trigger parental disappointment, or incur structured disciplinary interventions.
• Internalization of Social Control: While perceived parental attitudes originate as external social controls, within the adolescent’s cognitive apparatus they function as self-regulatory guideposts. Through repeated communicative interactions and modeling, perceived parental standards become integrated into the youth’s personal moral code, shaping their anticipated guilt, risk calculations, and subjective behavioral norms.

The scale deliberately operationalizes three distinct substances: regular alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, and marijuana smoking. Each item represents a legal and developmental milestone of adolescent transgression. Regular alcohol use assesses perceived parental tolerance for ongoing, habitual drinking rather than ritualistic or situational sips, capturing parental boundaries surrounding adolescent intoxication. Cigarette smoking assesses boundaries regarding a historically ubiquitous, highly addictive substance associated with severe long-term morbidity. Marijuana smoking evaluates parental stance toward an illicit (or age-restricted) psychoactive substance carrying both legal and cognitive risks. Together, these items constitute a coherent unidimensional latent construct reflecting the perceived rigidity or permeability of family standards across the primary gateway substances.

6. Theoretical Framework

The scale is theoretically embedded within the Social Development Model (SDM), synthesized by J. David Hawkins and Richard F. Catalano. The SDM is an integrative developmental theory that synthesizes principles from Travis Hirschi’s Social Control Theory, Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory, and Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory.

The SDM posits that human behavior develops through continuous interaction between individuals and their primary socialization units (family, school, peer group, and community). According to the model, socialization proceeds through four sequential processes:

1. Opportunities for Involvement: Youth must be afforded opportunities to actively participate in the socialization unit.
2. Interaction and Skills: Youth require interpersonal and behavioral skills to successfully navigate these opportunities.
3. Reinforcement: Consistent positive reinforcement for prosocial involvement fosters social bonding.
4. Bonding and Internalization: The establishment of a strong social bond—characterized by attachment to socializing agents, commitment to conventional activities, and belief in the shared values of the unit—leads youth to conform to the behavioral standards of that unit.

Within this architecture, the behavioral trajectory of the adolescent is dictated by the standards for behavior held and communicated by the entities to which the youth is bonded. If parents maintain, model, and clearly articulate conventional, anti-drug attitudes, a bonded adolescent internalizes these standards as a mechanism to preserve relational harmony and avoid the rupture of attachment. Conversely, if parental attitudes are perceived as permissive, ambivalent, or tolerant toward substance use, the protective mechanism of the social bond is nullified; the adolescent perceives no relational risk in experimenting with substances.

Furthermore, the SDM integrates differential association by postulating that clear parental anti-drug attitudes serve as a psychological shield against peer drug exposure. When adolescents operate with an explicit internal awareness that their parents view drug use as strictly “Wrong” or “Very wrong,” this cognitive schema increases their resistance to peer invitations, moderates the influence of drug-using peer networks, and directly decreases favorable personal attitudes toward substance experimentation.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Parental Attitudes Toward Drug Use subscale has been rigorously established through extensive longitudinal and multi-cohort validation studies conducted by the Social Development Research Group and independent evaluators.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by strong, theoretically coherent associations within multi-trait multi-method nomological networks. In the psychometric validation study of the Communities That Care Youth Survey published by Arthur, Hawkins, Pollard, Catalano, and Baglioni (2002), the scale demonstrated pronounced factor loadings on its designated family-domain latent dimension. It diverged sharply from unrelated constructs (such as community physical decay or academic giftedness) while demonstrating strong structural convergence with related family-domain scales, including Family Rules, Parental Monitoring, and Family Attachment.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Longitudinal data from the Seattle Social Development Project (tracking individuals from elementary school through adulthood) and large-scale state-level administrations of the CTC Youth Survey have consistently established the scale’s predictive validity:

• Substance Initiation and Escalation: Lower perceived parental disapproval measured during early adolescence (grades 6 through 8) prospectively predicts higher rates of alcohol initiation, monthly cigarette smoking, and early cannabis onset in grades 9 through 12, even after controlling for baseline peer substance use and family socioeconomic status.
• Binge Drinking and Polysubstance Use: Youth scoring at the lowest quartile (perceiving their parents view substance use as “Not wrong at all” or “A little bit wrong”) are between 2.5 and 4.2 times more likely to report past-30-day binge drinking and polysubstance use compared to peers whose parents are perceived as holding unequivocal anti-drug attitudes (“Very wrong”).
• Delinquency and Behavioral Problems: Although primarily assessing drug-specific standards, the scale also exhibits cross-cutting predictive utility for broader externalizing delinquent behaviors, reflecting the systemic role of family norm articulation in overall behavioral socialization.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

In cross-sectional correlation matrices across diverse state samples (e.g., statewide administrations in Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Utah), the subscale correlates strongly with personal attitudes toward drug use (typically ranging from r = .45 to r = .60, p < .001) and perceived peer approval of drug use (r = .38 to r = .52, p < .001). Discriminant validity is supported by modest-to-near-zero correlations with non-normative community markers, such as youth mobility or neighborhood transition (typically r < .15), demonstrating that the measure isolates family-specific normative communication rather than ambient social disadvantage.

8. Reliability

The Parental Attitudes Toward Drug Use scale exhibits high reliability across diverse demographic strata, geographic settings, and longitudinal assessment waves.

Internal Consistency

In the foundational psychometric evaluation by Arthur et al. (2002), involving a cross-sectional sample of more than 70,000 students across grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 from six states, the subscale demonstrated robust internal consistency across all grade levels:

• Grade 6: Cronbach’s α = .78 to .81
• Grade 8: Cronbach’s α = .82 to .85
• Grade 10: Cronbach’s α = .84 to .87
• Grade 12: Cronbach’s α = .85 to .88

The slight elevation in Cronbach’s alpha among older adolescents reflects the increasing cognitive consolidation of social schemas and greater differentiation of normative boundaries as youth age through the developmental window of peer substance exposure. Mean inter-item correlations reliably fall within the optimal range of r = .52 to .68, demonstrating high conceptual cohesion without excessive item redundancy.

Test-Retest Stability

Subsamples evaluated across brief test-retest windows (2 to 4 weeks) demonstrate high temporal stability coefficients, with intra-class correlations (ICC) and Pearson correlation coefficients consistently exceeding r = .80. In longitudinal analyses spanning 12-month intervals, stability coefficients remain moderate-to-high (r = .54 to .66), accurately reflecting both personal trait-like consistency and real developmental shifts in family dynamics during the transition from middle to late adolescence.

Measurement Invariance

Extensive psychometric evaluations have demonstrated measurement invariance across racial, ethnic, and gender subgroups. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses confirm configural, metric, and scalar invariance across male and female respondents, as well as across White, African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American adolescent cohorts, ensuring that observed score differences reflect authentic variations in perceived family norms rather than measurement artifact or differential item functioning.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent structure of the Parental Attitudes Toward Drug Use items has been thoroughly modeled through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale development within the Seattle Social Development Project, principal components and principal axis factoring with promax and varimax rotations were conducted on large pools of family-related items. The three items assessing parental disapproval of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana consistently loaded onto a distinct, standalone factor. Eigenvalue decomposition revealed a single dominant factor accounting for over 70% of the total variance, with an initial eigenvalue typically exceeding 2.20 and all subsequent eigenvalues dropping well below 0.50, satisfying the Kaiser-Guttman criterion and scree plot inspection for strict unidimensionality.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In structural modeling and validation across large epidemiological CTC samples, CFA has confirmed that the three-item single-factor model exhibits superior fit indices across diverse youth populations. Standardized factor loadings (λ) for the items are exceptionally strong:

• Item 1 (Beer, wine, or hard liquor): λ = .76 to .84
• Item 2 (Cigarettes): λ = .78 to .85
• Item 3 (Marijuana): λ = .82 to .91

Because fully saturated three-item single-factor models possess zero degrees of freedom (just-identified), researchers have evaluated model fit within broader multi-factor family domain structural models (encompassing parental monitoring, family conflict, family attachment, and family history of antisocial behavior). In these comprehensive CFA specifications, the factor structure demonstrates exemplary fit criteria:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): ≥ .96 to .99
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): ≥ .95 to .98
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): ≤ .035 to .048 (90% Confidence Interval: [.031, .052])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): ≤ .025 to .038

These empirical indices verify that treating the three items as indicators of a solitary latent construct is theoretically sound and mathematically robust.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Parental Attitudes Toward Drug Use — Seattle Social Development Project (also cataloged in the Communities That Care Youth Survey and the CDC Compendium of Assessment Tools).
• Construct Assessed: Perceived parental disapproval of adolescent substance use (family-domain protective factor).
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil self-report questionnaire or secure online survey module.
• Target Population: Adolescents and youth, primarily in middle school and high school (grades 6 through 12, ages 11–18).
• Completion Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Total Number of Items: 3 items.
• Item Stem: “How wrong do your parents feel it would be for you to …”
• Response Options and Scoring Values:
  • Very wrong = 4
  • Wrong = 3
  • Alittle bit wrong = 2
  • Not wrong at all = 1
• Scoring Protocol: Point values assigned to each of the three items are summed together and then divided by the total number of valid answered items (3), yielding a continuous mean composite score ranging from 1.00 to 4.00.
  • Scale Directionality: Higher scores reflect greater perceived parental concern and disapproval regarding drug use (protective factor).
  • Missing Data Handling: If a respondent completes fewer than 2 items, the subscale score is classified as missing. For respondents answering 2 of the 3 items, the mean of the completed items may be utilized in accordance with CTC survey guidelines.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed as part of the Seattle Social Development Project in the 1980s and formally validated as a core component of the Communities That Care (CTC) Youth Survey in the 1990s and early 2000s (Arthur et al., 2002). The instrument is published in the public domain as part of federal scientific evaluation initiatives supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The tool is cataloged on page 302 of Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools, published by the CDC (Dahlberg et al., 2005). As a federally supported, public-access surveillance instrument, it is available free of charge for non-commercial educational, academic research, and community public health purposes. No licensing fees or formal commercial royalties are required. Researchers and community coalitions utilizing the scale are expected to cite the original authors (Arthur et al., 2002; Hawkins et al., 1992) in resulting publications and technical reports.

12. References

• Arthur, M. W., Hawkins, J. D., Pollard, J. A., Catalano, R. F., & Baglioni, A. J. (2002). Measuring risk and protective factors for substance use, delinquency, and other adolescent problem behaviors: The Communities That Care Youth Survey. Evaluation Review, 26(6), 575–601. https://doi.org/10.1177/019384102237850
• 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. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511527623.007
• Dahlberg, L. L., Toal, S. B., Swahn, M., & Behrens, C. B. (2005). Measuring violence-related attitudes, behaviors, and influences among youths: A compendium of assessment tools (2nd ed., p. 302). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf
• Glaser, R. R., Van Horn, M. L., Arthur, M. W., & Hawkins, J. D. (2005). Measurement properties of the Communities That Care Youth Survey across demographic groups. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 21(1), 73–102. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-004-1788-1
• Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., & Miller, J. Y. (1992). Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: Implications for substance abuse prevention. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 64–105. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.64
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). Communities That Care Youth Survey: Risk- and protective-factor scale construction. SAMHSA Store Publication No. CTC020. https://store.samhsa.gov/shin/content//CTC020/CTC020.pdf

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)