College Students' Perceptions of Their Parents' Attitudes and Practices toward Drug Use.

This paper summarizes the responses of students to questions dealing with perceptions of their parents' attitudes toward the students' use of drugs, as well as the students' estimates of parental use of these substances. Over 12,000 students at 20 colleges in the New York area were questioned. Students using marijuana or other illegal drugs at the time of the survey perceived their parents (1) as using more drugs; and (2) as being more tolerant to their own experimentation than students who had used drugs in the past or had never used them. The data show the existence of a relationship between students' behavior and their perceptions of their parents' attitudes and practices. It is evident that parallel data from the parents is needed to establish whether the children's perceptions (1) are accurate; or (2) are distorted to provide a rationalization for their behavior. (Author/TA)