Social and Psychological Features of Young Drug Misusers

Abstract

Summary This paper reports a field study of the social and psychological features of young drug misusers in Glasgow. The investigation was of the anonymous self‐report type and was based upon a questionnaire and two personality inventories (the PEN and the IP AT Anxiety Scale). Clear distinctions were found between those who do misuse drugs and those who do not. The trend was for drug misuse to be consistently related to elevated levels of anxiety, neuroticism and psychoticism, whereas extroversion‐introversion proved to be a personality dimension unrelated to the misuse of drugs. Identified drug misusers differed substantially from non‐misusers in their opinions and beliefs about drugs in general. Further, they were more likely to have experienced an unhappy home and school life, to have more involvement in the use of tobacco, alcohol, and pre‐ or extra‐marital sex, and were more prone to unemployment problems.