ALCOHOL EXPECTANCIES AND ADOLESCENT DRINKING - DIFFERENTIAL PREDICTION OF FREQUENCY, QUANTITY, AND INTOXICATION

Although alcohol expectancies have been shown to be consistently relat ed to drinking and problematic drinking among underage youth, some stu dies suggest that they are more predictive of quantity than of frequen cy of drinking. However, this hypothesis has not been formally tested. This study examines the differential prediction hypothesis using a sa mple of 1,781 high school students from the San Francisco Bay Area. Me asures included yearly and monthly frequency of drinking and intoxicat ion and usual quantity consumed per drinking occasion. Alcohol expecta ncies were measured with 11 items asking about the likelihood that hav ing 2 or 3 whole drinks of alcohol would lead to specific personal con sequences. Structural equations analyses indicated that expectancies w ere better predictors of quantity than of frequency or intoxication. T he results also show that positive and negative expectancy subscales w ere differentially associated with the drinking measures and the patte rns were somewhat different for males and females.