Latino and European American early adolescentsʹ exposure to music with substance-use references: Examining parent–child communication as a moderator

This study hypothesized that frequent exposure to and attention to music with substance-use references would be indirectly related to alcohol, cigarette, or marijuana use through pro-substance-use beliefs (e.g., norms, outcome expectancies, and refusal efficacy). Parent–child communication, however, would attenuate such associations, which would differ by ethnicity. Multigroup mediation and moderation analyses were conducted, using cross-sectional survey data from 253 Latino and 308 European American 6th–8th grades students. For Latino and European American early adolescents, best-friend-injunctive norms and weak refusal efficacy were significant mediators, but not positive outcome expectancies. Descriptive norms were a significant mediator, but only for European American early adolescents. Although targeted parent–child communication and parental mediation did not moderate the associations between the music-exposure variables and the pro-substance-use beliefs variables, targeted parent–child communication attenuated the association between listening to favorite songs and alcohol consumption. Parental mediation attenuated the association between attention to music and alcohol consumption.