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Expectancies as a Predictor of Adolescent Alcohol Use
INTRODUCTION
This paper examines the use of an idea referred to as expectancy as a predictor of teen
alcohol use. Expectancies are concepts
that a society reinforces which go on to influence a person's behavior. Current clinical
and field studies show that alcohol e
HISTORY
Prior to the early 1960s, virtually no clinical studies were available on the topic of
teen drinking, as literature mostly focused on
negative social and moral implications of the activity (Maddox and McCall, 1964).
Contrary to somewhat popular notion, h n
Once research findings established the basic foundations, further questions soon arose on
the psychological reasons behind the
increase in consumption. Though the answers are still not definitive by any means, a few
commonly accepted theories arose. Tee
E
PROBLEM DRINKING
In the late 1970s and into the 1980s researchers begun to realize that they had not
designed their studies to examine this much
more destructive phenomenon of problem drinking. Differing definitions of problem
drinking exist, but virtually all contempora
EXPECTANCIES
Researchers began a continuing effort piece together a single explanation for problem
drinking. Given the vast set of variables
involved, this goal proved to be a formidable task. They shifted focus to the emerging
theory of expectancies as a method of to the
anticipation of a systematic relationship between events or objects in some upcoming
situation. The relationship is understood to be
of an if-then variety: If a certain event or object is registered then a certain event is
expected to followE
Expectation can be inferred to have causal status in that an individual with his/her own
actions, may produce a certain
consequence upon noting that an if condition is fulfilled.
More simply stated, drinkers learn certain behavior about drinking from their society.
When exposed to alcohol, or alcohol-related
cues, they accept and act upon these understandings. Aas (1995) believes, "children learn
what to expect of alcohol and th A
number of surveys can detect expectancies. The one most commonly used for adolescents is
the Alcohol Expectancy
Questionnaire- Adolescent Form, (AEQ-A). Other significant surveys include both the
Alcohol Effects Scale (AES), and the
Effects of Drinkin Baker (1987) outlines the two basic constructs that psychologists know
as the Conditioned Withdrawal Model
(CWM), and the Conditioned Appetitive-Motivational Model (CAMM). The CWM can detect
problem drinking based on the
notion that certain expectancies "
However, several problems have developed in the process of using these constructs as
predictive models both in clinical studies
and in individual cases. A person develops expectancies in childhood and early
adolescence, but they may not influence actual o
CURRENT RESEARCH
Current research on expectancies is focusing on combining personal and social statistics
with current knowledge on the topic as a
better indicator. For both expectancy models, high-risk youngsters clearly hold higher
than average expectancies (Christians
DISCUSSION
Though the literature and research to date have been very effective at showing the
accuracy of adolescent alcohol expectancies, I
feel it is quite inadequate as to its practical use in the classroom. A few authors make
vague and general references to pra If
schools administered expectancy surveys over the span of an adolescent's academic career,
then a much clearer picture of
potential problem drinking would develop. Tracking over a long period would overcome the
methodological problems encountered
in so A number of problems could also arise if schools were to adopt this theory. For
example, surveys or constructs provide no
definite answers. If the educational system relies to heavily on this theory alone, it
dooms the idea to be no better than traditio The
final complication of long term tracking would not be so simple to solve; few in the
educational profession are likely to lack training
in expectancy theory. It would be a costly effort to attempt to train counseling staffs
to understand and interpre FURTHER
STUDY
Further study must begin to explore specifically the practical applications of
expectancies in the educational system such as I
discuss. Prior research studies have certainly laid the groundwork to show that
expectancies can provide a reasonably accurate
CONCLUSIONS
No research has been conducted on the practical applications of what we know about
alcohol expectancies. This observation
neither nor denies my thesis, but instead merits further investigation. On the basis of
on the accumulated knowledge of 30 years.
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