The way in which 17-year-olds talk to each other is an indicator of how these people will behave at the age of 27. Young people who have positive conversations about drugs and alcohol are at greater risk of developing a substance abuse problem later in life. Such conversations may include those in which teenagers express admiration for peers who use narcotics, in which the name of a good pub is mentioned or in which the participants discuss how much fun it would be to use cannabis.
Listen carefully
Youngsters who have these types of conversations are more likely to be diagnosed with a substance abuse problem ten years down the track. “Even young people who have little interest in alcohol or drugs run a greater risk of developing a substance abuse problem because they took part in such conversations,” claims researcher Roy Otten, who is a Professor of Developmental Psychology at Radboud University. “It would be better if we listened to what young people had to say instead of asking them to complete a questionnaire. This would offer a more effective manner for predicting future problematic behaviour.”
Otten worked together with researchers from Arizona State University. The research study was based on 497 conversations between 17-year-olds who were friends with each other. The young people were from American families that have been participating in a longitudinal research project that was conducted among problematic and potentially problematic families.
During one of the measurement moments, the youngsters brought along a friend of the same sex, with whom they had discussed such questions as: If you were to organise a party, what would you need? There were large differences in how quickly young people raised the topic of alcohol or drugs and the extent to which they kept talking about these topics. Some of them did not mention narcotics at all.
The same young people were interviewed ten years later. By that time, some of them had officially been diagnosed with alcohol or soft drug use. These were mostly the people who had had a greater tendency to talk incessantly about these substances ten years earlier. This seemed to be less true for hard drugs.
Language influences behaviour
“Young people are susceptible to addiction because their brains are still developing,” says Otten. “They’re sensitive to what others think. If their peers talk positively about narcotics, they’ll tend to agree with their conversational partner rather than express a different opinion. This type of behaviour will consequently normalise or even encourage drug use.”
“Interaction with peers may set off a chain reaction,” continues the researcher. “Conversations may can encourage risky behaviour, which in turn may lead to excessive usage. The interesting thing about this research study is that it shows that language seems to influence behaviour. We’d like to investigate whether this connection also exists for other issues, such as aggression. If aggressive talk also predicts whether someone will be convicted of a violent crime later in life, this will give us the opportunity to intervene at an early stage so that we can prevent this from happening.”
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