A replication and elaboration of the esteem-enhancement model

Adolescents treated in clinical settings for drug use problems are often observed to have low self-esteem. This has led some researchers to the belief that mood or personality characteristics of adolescents predispose them to drug use. However, longitudinal field studies have failed to confirm a direct relationship between low self-esteem and substance abuse (Petraitis et al. 1995). Evidently, if an important causal relationship exists between self-esteem and drug use in the nonclinical adolescent population, it is complex and mediated by other factors. To address this issue, explanatory theories are needed that can organize the relationships between drug abuse and its antecendent causes including low self-esteem. One of the few theoretical approaches that has been put forward for empirical verification is the esteem-enhancement theory of Kaplan, Johnson, and Bailey (1986a, 1987, 1988).