Ms. Goldman et al., A CONFIRMATORY TEST OF HIERARCHICAL EXPECTANCY STRUCTURE AND PREDICTIVE POWER - DISCRIMINANT VALIDATION OF THE ALCOHOL EXPECTANCY QUESTIONNAIRE, Psychological assessment, 9(2), 1997, pp. 145-157
Although a hierarchical structure of alcohol expectancies has been hyp
othesized, until recently confirmatory methods for testing such a mode
l have been unavailable. Using concurrent data from 446 young adults e
ntering college for the first time, this study applied new hierarchica
l models for confirmatory factor analysis to the Alcohol Expectancy Qu
estionnaire. Then, using prospective drinking data from 428 participan
ts, it evaluated the contribution of both common (higher order) and un
ique (first-order) expectancy variance to the prediction of alcohol us
e 1 year later. Results supported the hierarchical structure of alcoho
l expectancies and indicated that associated common and unique varianc
e reliably predicted alcohol use. One uniqueness (social-physical plea
sure) outpredicted the common variance. The theoretical (process) impl
ications of these findings are discussed.