Multiple Contingency Table Analyses of the Deviance Syndrome: How Much Overlap is There?

This is a study of 1,621 adolescent who attended 13 schools, grades seven through eleven, in a southern metropolitan school district. The purpose of the study is twofold: (a) to find out exactly how much overlap there is in individuals who smoke cigarettes, get drunk on alcohol, use marijuana, and have sexual intercourse, and (b) to examine how much overlap there is in these behaviors according to age, gender, race and family structure. Log-linear statistics are used and examine multiple contingency tables for all possible main effects and interactions while selecting the most parsimonious model that minimizes the differences between observed cell counts and expected values assuming there are no relationships (null hypothesis). While there are statistically significant relationships between heavy alcohol use, use of marijuana and sexual activity, most teenagers do not engage in all four of these behaviors. Also, all demographic factors enter into interactions with these behaviors. Implications of this study for future research are discussed.