Teenagers whose parents allow them to watch R-rated movies are more likely to start drinking at a younger age than their peers whose parents do not, according to a study conducted by Dartmouth Medical School pediatrics professors Susanne Tanski and James Sargent.
"After we adjusted for everything: age, gender, rebelliousness and sensation-seeking, the kids who are allowed to watch R-rated movies are about three and a half times more likely to initiate drinking than kids who said they were never allowed to watch R-rated movies by their parents," Tanski said.
The researchers conducted surveys at northern New England schools for students from fifth to eighth grade in 1999, according to Sargent. The children who reported no experience with drinking in 1999 were given a follow-up survey conducted over the phone 18 months later, Sargent said.
The follow-up survey asked how often the students were allowed by their parents to watch R-rated movies, as well as whether the survey participants had consumed alcohol without parental knowledge.
"The first kind of surprising thing to us was that about 20 percent of the kids said that their parents let them watch R-rated films all the time," Sargent said. "The more they are allowed to watch, the higher the chances are that they initiated drinking during the 18-month period."
Although parents who do not allow their children to watch R-rated films also have stricter parenting styles, therefore delaying the age at which their children start drinking, the researchers sought to control for this, Sargent said. Other factors, such as sensation-seeking and the level of attention given specifically by the child's mother can affect students' decisions to initiate drinking, he said.
"We assess the impact of these factors by asking them questions about [the factors]," Sargent said. "We then use a multivariate model, which tells you whether your variable of interest predicts the initiation of alcohol drinking, everything else being equal."
The researchers used a model to adjust for the influence of these factors. Before the model was used, the participants whose parents allowed them to watch R-rated films were about 10 times more likely to initiate drinking in the 18-month period, compared to their counterparts who were never allowed to watch R-rated films, Sargent said.
These results indicate a strong correlation between R-rated movie-watching and teenage consumption of alcohol, according to Sargent.
The study was part of ongoing research investigating the influence of general media on teenage behaviors, Tanski said. The program, now in its 12th year, is funded by the National Institute of Health, Sargent said.
Because the study employed "convenience sampling" and surveyed mostly teenagers in northern New England, the participants were predominantly white, according to Tanski.
Tanski and Sargent are currently conducting a larger study with a national sample of 7,000 teenagers.
"We've been working with [kids from the national sample] for four years; we didn't follow the northern New England kids as long," Tanski said. "The national sample is now reaching college-age."
The significance of the study lies in helping parents realize that parenting can have a significant impact on children's behavior by controlling the media environment their children can access, she said.
Allowing children to watch R-rated movies before they are 17 exposes them to too many adult situations, Tanski said.
"Kids who start drinking before age 16 are a lot more likely to have problems with drinking later on in life than others," she said.
The study was published Monday in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
