A CONFIRMATORY TEST OF HIERARCHICAL EXPECTANCY STRUCTURE AND PREDICTIVE POWER - DISCRIMINANT VALIDATION OF THE ALCOHOL EXPECTANCY QUESTIONNAIRE

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.