Alcohol Expectancies In Children Research Articles

Exposure to Parental Alcohol Use Rather Than Parental Drinking Shapes Offspring's Alcohol Expectancies.

Alcohol expectancies (AE), that is, the anticipated effects of alcohol, start developing early in childhood and are important predictors of alcohol use years later. Whereas previous research has demonstrated that parental drinking relates to children's AE, this study aims to test whether exposure to parental alcohol use mediates the link between parental alcohol use and positive and negative AE among children (6 to 8years) and early adolescents (12 to 15years). Longitudinal multi-informant family studies were conducted in the Netherlands among children (Study 1 (2015 to 2017): N=329; 48.9% boys; Mage =4.6) and adolescents (Study 2 [2015 to 2018]: N=755; 45.6% boys; Mage =11.3). Fathers' and mothers' alcohol use in terms of quantity and exposure (i.e., the frequency of alcohol use in 9 family-specific situations), and offspring's AE were collected using online questionnaires. Structural equation modeling conducted in the full sample and separately by gender revealed the following: For children, no associations were found in the full sample. However, gender-specific results indicated that fathers' exposure was associated with (and mediated) favorable AE. Among adolescents, fathers' exposure was associated with (and mediated) social and coping AE (both boys and girls) and enhancement AE (only boys). Contrastingly, neither mothers' alcohol use nor its exposure was associated with any AE. Although different associations were found by offspring's gender, strong evidence for gender differences was lacking. This study indicates that, for specific expectancies, exposure to fathers' alcohol use shapes offspring's cognitions about the effects of alcohol, rather than fathers' alcohol use in general. Prevention efforts could focus on lowering the degree to which fathers expose their drinking, which might be more easily changeable than drinking in general.

Modifying alcohol expectancies of Hispanic children: examining the effects of expectancy-targeted, developmentally congruous prevention videos.

Children's expectations about the effects of alcohol consumption are known to predict the amount of alcohol they consume as adults. Previous research has used videotaped interventions to modify children's alcohol expectancies and found that puppet actors had the expected effect of decreasing children's positive alcohol expectancies, whereas adult actors did not. The current study sought to enhance the methods and outcomes of previous research by developing brief prevention videos that focus on pre-selected negative and sedating alcohol expectancies and include youth actors and age-relevant scenarios. Using a 2 × 2 factorial design (actor's age [youth or adult] × scenario relevance [youth or adult]), we examined the alcohol expectancies of 183 Hispanic third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students (50% girls) in a public school setting. Expectancies were assessed before, immediately following the intervention, and 1 month later. The intervention consisted of four 8-minute videos based on beliefs associated with expectancies related to low alcohol consumption and a control group video about school bus safety. Positive alcohol expectancies were significantly lower directly after the intervention than at baseline. At 1-month follow-up, this effect decreased but was still significant. The current study adds to existing findings that expectancies can be modified in children, using interventions that are extremely brief, low-cost, and linked to research in children's cognitive and social development. In addition, it appears that children of different ages and genders respond differently to varying components of prevention media.

Interactive association of dopamine receptor (DRD4) genotype and ADHD on alcohol expectancies in children.

Positive and negative alcohol expectancies (AEs) are beliefs about the consequences of alcohol use (e.g., happy, sad, lazy) and they predict patterns of adolescent and adult alcohol engagement in clinical and nonclinical samples. However, significantly less is known about predictors of AE in children, despite significant variability in AE early in and across development. To identify temporally ordered risk factors that precede AE, we evaluated the independent and interactive association of the functional 7-repeat polymorphism of the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) genotype and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with respect to individual differences in positive-social, negative-arousal, sedated/impaired, and wild/crazy AE in school-age children (N = 149) prospectively followed from 6-9 to 8-13 years of age. Controlling for age, sex, and wave, DRD4 7+ carriers reported more wild/crazy AE, but DRD4 was unrelated to the remaining AE domains. ADHD symptoms independently predicted higher negative-arousal, sedated/impaired, and wild/crazy AE, but not positive-social. We also observed a significant interaction in which ADHD symptoms positively predicted wild/crazy AE only in youth with the 7-repeat DRD4 genotype; the same interaction marginally predicted sedated/impaired AE. No interactive effects were observed for the remaining AE domains. These preliminary results suggest that, among DRD4 youth, early ADHD symptoms predict that children will expect alcohol to have wild/crazy effects. We consider these results within a developmental framework to better understand pathways to and from youth alcohol problems.

Parental alcohol involvement and adolescent alcohol expectancies predict alcohol involvement in male adolescents.

Current models of adolescent drinking behavior hypothesize that alcohol expectancies mediate the effects of other proximal and distal risk factors. This longitudinal study tested the hypothesis that the effects of parental alcohol involvement on their children's drinking behavior in mid-adolescence are mediated by the children's alcohol expectancies in early adolescence. A sample of 148 initially 9-11 year old boys and their parents from a high-risk population and a contrast group of community families completed measures of drinking behavior and alcohol expectancies over a 6-year interval. We analyzed data from middle childhood (M age = 10.4 years), early adolescence (M age = 13.5 years), and mid-adolescence (M age = 16.5 years). The sample was restricted only to adolescents who had begun to drink by mid-adolescence. Results from zero-inflated Poisson regression analyses showed that 1) maternal drinking during their children's middle childhood predicted number of drinking days in middle adolescence; 2) negative and positive alcohol expectancies in early adolescence predicted odds of any intoxication in middle adolescence; and 3) paternal alcoholism during their children's middle childhood and adolescents' alcohol expectancies in early adolescence predicted frequency of intoxication in middle adolescence. Contrary to predictions, child alcohol expectancies did not mediate the effects of parental alcohol involvement in this high-risk sample. Different aspects of parental alcohol involvement, along with early adolescent alcohol expectancies, independently predicted adolescent drinking behavior in middle adolescence. Alternative pathways for the influence of maternal and paternal alcohol involvement and implications for expectancy models of adolescent drinking behavior were discussed.

Ethnic Differences in Positive Alcohol Expectancies During Childhood: The Pittsburgh Girls Study

Positive expectancies about alcohol's effects are more likely to be endorsed with increasing age through adolescence, and the strength of positive alcohol expectancies in children appears to differ by ethnicity. Little is known about the extent to which differences in a measure's psychometric properties as a function of development and ethnicity may account for changes that are observed over time and ethnic differences. This study used measurement invariance methods to examine ethnic differences in the development of alcohol expectancies, and examined risk factors associated with girls' positive expectancies. African-American (56%) and Caucasian (44%) girls (n = 570) in the age 7 cohort of the Pittsburgh Girls Study, and the girl's primary caretaker, were followed annually for 4 years (ages 7-10). Girls reported on alcohol expectancies at each wave, and physical aggression at Year 1. In Year 1, caretakers reported on neighborhood drug use, their own substance-related problems, and depression in the girl. Structural equation modeling was used to examine measurement invariance of positive alcohol expectancies, and to test associations of risk factors to initial level and change in expectancies. Five of 8 positive alcohol expectancy items showed measurement equivalence for African-American and Caucasian girls in cross-sectional, but not longitudinal, analyses. Measurement equivalence over ages 7-10 was demonstrated for Caucasian girls, and over ages 7-8 and 9-10 (i.e., a two-part model) for African-American girls. Risk factor analyses indicated that, for Caucasian girls, greater physical aggression was associated with higher initial positive expectancies. Some developmental change and ethnic differences in the performance of positive expectancy items were identified, highlighting the utility of measurement invariance methods. Risk factor analyses suggest the potential benefit of targeted alcohol prevention interventions for certain girls.

Television and drinking expectancies: the influence of television viewing on positive drinking expectanc and alcohol use among US and Norwegian adolescents: a comparative analysis

Objective Exposure to incidental portrayals of drinking on television and cleverly crafted advertisements has been linked to the development of positive alcohol expectancies in children and teenagers. Researchers hoping to demonstrate this connection, however, have difficultly in finding adolescent groups with little or no exposure to alcohol advertising for comparative purposes. One of the cornerstones of Norwegian alcohol policy has been a government-enacted ban on all forms of advertising for alcohol products containing more than 2.5% alcohol by volume. As a consequence, Norwegian youth have almost no experience with alcohol advertising. This study represents a comparative analysis of Norwegian and US teenagers that seeks to improve our understanding of television's and alcohol advertising's potential role in shaping attitudes about alcohol. Method Self-report data on television viewing, normative beliefs about teenage drinking, and alcohol expectancies were collected from convenience samples of 972 junior high students in the US and 622 junior high students in Norway. Results Although students in both countries watch about the same amount of television and about equal numbers have tried alcohol, the Norwegian students were more likely to see drinking as a normal teenage behavior and to have more positive outcome expectancies. For students from both countries who had no personal experience with alcohol, frequent television viewers were more likely than light viewers to see drinking as a normative behavior with positive outcomes. This was particularly true for Norwegian students who viewed large amount of US and British programs as well as music videos. Conclusion The absence of alcohol advertising in Norway may be overshadowed by the general cultural acceptance of adolescent and young adult drinking. For students with no personal experience with alcohol, however, television may be functioning as an important socializing agent, providing them with portrayals of drinking behaviors, cultivating normative beliefs, and presenting opportunities to cognitively model and rehearse the behaviors shown.

Variation by race in children's alcohol expectancies.

The purpose of this study was to further investigate a post-hoc finding on racial differences in children's alcohol expectancies. This was a secondary analysis of data originally collected for an evaluation study of longitudinal effects of a pre-school substance abuse prevention program in Cleveland. OH. Ss were second and third grade students who had received intervention services 3 years earlier and a matched comparison group who had not. The samples were combined for a total N = 69. Independent samples t-tests were used to assess differences in alcohol expectancy scores (on the Children's Alcohol-Related Expectancies (CARE) questionnaire). Data analysis revealed significantly higher CARE scores for black children than for whites. Most of the variance was in a sub-scale, which measures beliefs on how alcohol effects arousal and aggression. The finding that black children more often reported beliefs that alcohol intensifies feelings and makes fighting easier may suggest differential exposure to models of behavior. Alternatively, the finding may reflect aspects of alcohol marketing in African American communities.

Empirical modeling of an alcohol expectancy memory network in elementary school children as a function of grade.

University of South FloridaAlcohol expectancies appear in children before drinking begins and mediate the effects of otherdrinking antecedents. Hence, application of memory models to expectancies in children mayincrease understanding of drinking initiation. To this end, an instrument to assess children'sexpectancies within a memory network model was developed and administered to 470 children in2nd-5th grades. Multidimensional scaling analyses revealed that children generally organizeexpectancy information along the same evaluative and arousal-sedation dimensions as do adults,and older children become more likely to expect positive and arousing outcomes from drinking.These results suggest a cognitive process that prepares children for drinking initiation duringadolescence as well as new, theory-based approaches to prevention.As evidence has accumulated that alcohol expectancies caninfluence drinking and statistically mediate the effects of otherdrinking antecedents, efforts have begun to decipher themechanism of this influence (see Connors, Maisto, & Derman,1992; Goldman & Rather, 1993; National Institute on AlcoholAbuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA], 1993, pp. 133-135). Begin-ning with Tolman (1932), expectancies have been closelylinked to memory (e.g.. Holies, 1972; Overmeier, 1990; Res-corla, 1988). Recent approaches to studying memory may beuseful, therefore, for understanding how expectancies influ-ence alcohol use. To date, memory approaches to relatingexpectancies to adult drinking have included theoretical state-ments (Baker, Morse, & Sherman, 1987; Goldman & Rather,1993; Stacy, Widaman, & Marlatt, 1990; Tiffany, 1990), empiri-cal modeling (Rather & Goldman, 1994; Rather, Goldman,Roehrich, & Brannick, 1992), and the application of memoryresearch paradigms (e.g., priming—sec Chenier & Goldman,1992; Krank & Swift, 1994; Roehrich & Goldman, 1992; Stacy,Leigh, & Weingardt, 1994). Findings from structural equationmodeling also have been consistent with memory approaches(Henderson, Goldman, Coovert, & Carnevalla, 1994; Sher,Walitzer , Wood, & Brent, 1991; Stacy, Newcomb, & Bentler,1991).Information about alcohol effects (expectancies) can beidentified in preschool and elementary school aged childrenMichael E. Dunn and Mark S. Goldman, Department of Psychology,University of South Florida.Portions of this research were based on a master's thesis submittedto the University of South Florida by Michael E. Dunn and supportedby National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Grant R37AA08333.We thank Ray Gadd for his generosity in opening the doors of theschools in his district. We also thank Bruce Rather for his input andGreg Aarons, Jenine Collins, Dennis Kramer, Kevin Stein, and StaceyTantlefT Dunn for their assistance in data collection.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed toMark S. Goldman, Department of Psychology, BEH 339, University ofSouth Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620-8200. Electronic mail may besent via Internet to goldman@luna.cas.usf.edu.well before drinking begins, and such information, stored inmemory, may influence the initiation and development ofdrinking as children age into adolescence (Bauman & Bryan,1980; Christiansen, Smith, Roehling, & Goldman, 1989; Gaines,Brooks, Maisto, Dietrich, & Shagena, 1988; Isaacs, 1979;Jahoda & Cramond, 1972; Lang & Stritzke, 1993; Miller,Smith, & Goldman, 1990; Zucker, Fitzgerald, & Noll, 1991). Arecen t repor to the U.S. Congress from NIAAA (1993)stated understanding of alcohol and alcohol effectsis an area particularly ripe for future research because of thedevelopmental and prevention implications of recent findings(p. 135). By extending memory approaches to the acquisitionof expectancies in children, researchers' understanding ofdrinking initiation may be increased.Existing studies , however show that children's alcoholexpectancies can be quite negative (Johnson & Johnson,1991a) even though considerable drinking occurs by adoles-cence (Johnston , O'Malley & Bachman 1991). Recent find-ing s also suggest , however that favorabl e expectancie can bfoun d i n childre an may becom e mor important thanegative expectancies in predicting alcohol use during adoles-cence an d young adulthoo (Brown Creamer & Stetson1987; Christiansen et al., 1989; Leigh & Stacy, 1993; G. T.Smith, Goldman, Greenbaum, & Christiansen, 1995; Stacy etal., 1991). Th e cognitiv development literatur has histori-cally emphasized stage models that might underlie such atransition (Piaget, 1983). More recent views instead haveemphasized increasing complexity of the information that isacquired in specific domains (Siegler, 1983, 1991; Sternberg,1989) and increasing quantit y or qualit f information process-ing capacity (Kail, 1984).Alcohol expectancy findings can be placed into a memoryframework by modeling expectancies as units (nodes) ofinformation about specific outcomes of alcohol use located in asymbolic network. These units then may join into higher orderconfigurations when activated (Goldman & Rather, 1993). Anetwork (parallel) processing system is consistent with knowncharacteristics of the nervous system, and the mathematicsused to formalize such a system can be applied to a variety ofsimilar memory models (Chang, 1986; Estes, 1991; see Nosof-

Another Round for the Brewers: Television Ads and Children's Alcohol Expectancies1

In an experimental study of how beer commercials affect alcohol expectancies, 92 fifth graders watched 40 television ads that included either five beer commercials, five soft‐drink commercials, or five beer commercials plus two antidrinking messages. Afterwards, as an unrelated task, they completed the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire‐Adolescent Form (AEQ‐A; Christiansen, Goldman, & Inn, 1982). Exposure to different commercials produced no differences in drinking expectancies. The experiment was repeated on 74 eighth graders with similar null results; however, eighth‐grade girls more strongly believed (p <.02) that alcohol leads to deteriorated cognitive and behavioral function. In a comparison of fifth and eighth graders from the same school, eighth graders had significantly more positive scores on three AEQ‐A scales that tapped social/emotional expectancies. The failure of beer commercials to create positive alcohol expectancies is consistent with limited and null findings of previous investigations. Research to date does not support a ban on alcohol advertising.

Emergence of alcohol expectancies in childhood: a possible critical period.

Previous investigations with adolescents (aged 12-19) have shown alcohol-related expectancies to develop in childhood prior to significant drinking experience and to covary directly with drinking behavior. To chart the development of alcohol expectancies in children as young as age 6, a procedure was developed to be as independent as possible of age-related variation in reading and language development. This instrument was administered to 114 elementary school children of both genders, distributed across grades 1 to 5. Psychometric analysis provided evidence of the test's reliability and validity. Evaluation of the developmental pattern produced two primary findings: (1) there was an overall trend of increasingly positive expectancies with age; and (2) strikingly, the bulk of the increase was observed in the third and fourth grades. Children's expectancies may be less differentiated than adolescent or adult expectancies. These findings suggest that the precursors for later alcohol use and abuse are formed in childhood and that prevention efforts may need to begin as early as third grade.