Alcohol Expectancy Theory and the Identification of High-Risk Adolescents
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1994
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327795jra0402_4
Abstract
Four sets of findings support the theory that alcohol expectancy plays a causal-mediational role in teenage problem drinking: (a) Alcohol expectancies correlate with drinking behavior in adults and adolescents who range from low-level social drinkers to alcoholics; (b) expectancies predict the future onset of problem drinking in teenagers, and they have been measured in preadolescent children prior to any drinking experience; (c) expectancies mediate family influences on teen drinking, and they appear to operate in a vicious cycle--high expectancy leads to more drinking, which in turn leads to higher expectancy and still more drinking; and (d) experimental manipulation of expectancies can produce significant drinking reductions in heavy-drinking college students. We review the theory and this evidence and then present data from a 3-year longitudinal study that indicates that expectancy assessment may contribute to the identification of individual high-risk adolescents before drinking onset.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Journal of Research on Adolescence, v. 4, issue 2, p. 229-248
Scholar Commons Citation
Smith, Gregory T. and Goldman, Mark S., "Alcohol Expectancy Theory and the Identification of High-Risk Adolescents" (1994). Psychology Faculty Publications. 1591.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/psy_facpub/1591
