Cloninger's Constructs Related to Substance Use Level and Problems in Late Adolescence: A Mediational Model Based on Self-Control and Coping Motives

Predictions concerning mediating processes for the effects of C. R. Cloninger's (1987a) constructs were tested; criterion variables were substance use level and substance use problems. Participants were 1,225 adolescents ( M age: 15.5 years). Structural modeling indicated indirect effects for novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and task reward dependence, mediated through self-control; harm avoidance also had an inverse direct path to substance use level, and social reward dependence had a positive direct path to coping motives for substance use. Good self-control had inverse paths to life events and deviant peer affiliations; poor self-control had positive paths to life events and coping motives; and risk taking had positive paths to coping motives and peer affiliations. Coping motives had a path to level and a direct path to problems; peer affiliations had a path only to substance use level.