Alcohol expectancies change in early to middle adolescence as a function of the exposure to parental alcohol use

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.107938Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Alcohol use exposure predicted changes in alcohol expectancies over six months

  • Fathers’ and mothers’ exposure predicted adolescents’ social alcohol expectancies.

  • Fathers’ exposure predicted enhancement expectancies of boys.

  • Modeling of alcohol cognitions in adolescence occurs in relatively short periods

Abstract

Introduction

The subjective effects of alcohol, i.e., alcohol expectancies (AE), are important predictors of alcohol use. This three-year longitudinal study examined: 1) the development of enhancement, social, coping, and conformity AE from age 10–16; 2) the association between parental alcohol use exposure and positive AE among adolescents and between exposure and changes in AE over the six month period and 3) the moderating effect of gender on the association between exposure and change in AE.

Methods

A longitudinal study followed adolescents between 10-13-years old at baseline (N = 755; 45.6 % boys) in six months intervals for three years, resulting in seven measurements.

Results

Adolescents most strongly endorsed enhancement AE. Social and coping AE dimensions positively increased over time. The estimated Multilevel Model of Change revealed that exposure to either fathers ‘or mothers' alcohol use predicted an increase in social AE six months later (B = .129, SE = .032). Exposure to fathers’ drinking predicted an increase in enhancement AE for boys (B = .075, SE = .031) but not for girls (B=-0.045, SE = .030). No associations between parental exposure and other AE dimensions were found.

Conclusion

The results add to previous studies in showing that the association between parental drinking behavior and offspring AE develops within short periods. Prevention should, therefore, include explicit guidelines for parents with respect to how their drinking behavior affect their offspring.

Introduction

The subjective effects of alcohol, i.e., alcohol expectancies (AE), are important in explaining why people drink. AE start developing early in childhood, even long before adolescents start using alcohol (Kuntsche et al., 2016; Kuntsche and Kuntsche, 2018; Smit et al., 2018b; Voogt et al., 2017a). AE have been recognized as important precursors of the motivation to use alcohol (Brody et al., 2000; Jones et al., 2001; Pieters et al., 2014; Smit et al., 2018b). The few studies that aimed to explain the development of AE have identified parental alcohol use and exposure to parental use as crucial factors (Jones et al., 2001; Smit et al., 2018b). This is important since the transition of AE into their respective drinking motives also occurs in this early stage (Kuntsche et al., 2010). However, recent systematic reviews showed that most studies did not consider the degree to which offspring see their parents drinking, i.e., their exposure to parental alcohol use (Rossow et al., 2016; Ryan et al., 2010; Smit et al., 2018b), which in terms of modeling is likely to have a more profound effect on offspring’s cognitions. The aim of this study was to examine whether exposure to parental alcohol use increases AE among young adolescents. According to the Motivational Model of Alcohol Use (Cox and Klinger, 1990, 1988), four different AE dimensions emerge by crossing the dimensions valence (positive vs. negative reinforcement) and source (personally vs. socially): enhancement (i.e., to obtain positive feelings), coping (i.e., to avoid or reduce negative feelings), social (i.e., to obtain social rewards) and conformity (i.e., to avoid social rejection). Previous studies on AE, based on different dimensions (e.g., social benefits, motor enhancement), showed that positive AE tend to increase over time (Schell et al., 2005), particularly in early adolescence (Cameron et al., 2003; Copeland et al., 2014; Smit et al., 2018b). Since AE are important drivers of cognitions (drinking motives) and behavior (Jones et al., 2001) and experimenting with alcohol often occurs in early adolescence (Inchley et al., 2002), it is important to understand the development of AE in adolescence and its proximal predictors. Learning about the reinforcing effects of alcohol depends strongly on observed or personal experiences with alcohol (Campbell and Oei, 2010; Smit et al., 2018b). Besides friends, parents remain important socialization agents and sources of observational learning (Campbell and Oei, 2010; Leung et al., 2014; Rossow et al., 2016; Steinberg, 2005). Indeed, many studies have focused on parental alcohol use as a predictor of offspring’s acquisition and development of AE over time, demonstrating that parent’s drinking predicts positive AE over time (Cumsille et al., 2000; Smit et al., 2018b) even when adolescents had not yet initiated alcohol consumption (Ting et al., 2015). It is highly likely that a discrepancy exists between how often parents drink and how often their children see them drinking. Therefore, more insight is needed regarding potential explanations of why adolescents form AE over time, based on their parents’ drinking behavior. The Social Learning Theory (Bandura and McClelland, 1977) and the Cognitive Model of Intergenerational Transference (Campbell and Oei, 2010) posit that the degree to which a behavior is observed is important in the uptake of cognitions and behaviors. Consequently, adolescents might adopt their AE in accordance with their observations of their parents’ behaviors. Parents tend to particularly highlight the positive outcomes of alcohol use and avoid showing the negative outcomes resulting from excessive drinking (Jayne and Valentine, 2017). As a result, offspring may model positive cognitions concerning outcomes of alcohol use. In one previous study, we found that the exposure to parents’ alcohol use, rather than parental alcohol use per se, has an effect on positive AE (Smit et al., 2019), which shows that the distinction between general measures of parental alcohol use and parental alcohol use is important. It remains unclear, however, whether exposure to parental alcohol use is associated with the acquisition and development of AE in adolescence over time. Another important caveat in the current literature is that most studies on the development of AE have not investigated developmental sequences shorter than a year (Smit et al., 2018b). This is unfortunate because adolescence is a period that is characterized by rapid developments in social, psychological and physiological aspects (Steinberg, 2005), including changes in AE (Copeland et al., 2014). Adolescents orient themselves toward an adult status (Steinberg, 2008), and thus are likely to be sensitive to learning about the effects of alcohol from the adults close to them (Smit et al., 2018b). However, such modeling effects are supposed to occur in a shorter time than the one-year interval used in previous studies (Goldman, 1994; Jones et al., 2001; Smit et al., 2018b). Therefore, this study followed 10-13-year olds (at baseline), at six-month intervals for three years, resulting in seven measurements in total. This study expands the literature on the role of parental alcohol use on offspring’s AE in three ways. First, we aimed to gain insight into the acquisition and development of enhancement, social, coping, and conformity AE among early adolescents. Second, we examined whether exposure to fathers’ and mothers’ alcohol use is associated with AE from a given moment to the next (six months intervals) over a three-year period. We hypothesized that the exposure to fathers’ and mothers’ drinking was associated with positively reinforcing AE (i.e., AE regarding enhancing and social benefits of alcohol). Second, we examined whether AE changed as a function of exposure to fathers’ and mothers’ alcohol use while controlling for previous levels of AE (e.g., AE at 18 months follow-up were controlled for AE at 12 months follow-up), again expecting positively reinforcing AE to change as a function of exposure. Third, given the mixed gender-specific findings in the development of AE (Handley and Chassin, 2013; Kuntsche and Kuntsche, 2018; Mares et al., 2015; Smit et al., 2019), we explored whether gender moderated the association between exposure to fathers’ and mothers’ drinking and change in AE.

Section snippets

Procedure

Data were drawn from a multi-informant seven-wave longitudinal family study (Smit et al., 2019, 2018a). Starting in 2015, a nationally representative sample of young adolescents (aged ten to thirteen at baseline) and their mothers, were recruited from 123 primary schools. Information on the study was provided through presentation(s) to pupils and their parents, and letters inviting them to participate in the study were distributed. To register for the study, preteens and parents provided

Descriptive statistics

Alcohol expectancies and their changes over time (i.e., the association of AE with timepoint) are presented in Table 1. In general, mean scores of social and coping AE increase over time, as indicated by the associations of time point with social and coping AE. A paired samples t-test with aggregated mean exposure scores showed that adolescents reported more exposure to alcohol consumed by fathers (M = 1.49, SD = .86) on average, compared to mothers (M = 1.23, SD = .84), t(763) = 9.01, p <

Discussion

The current study investigated whether exposure to parental alcohol use was associated with a change in enhancement, social, coping, and conformity AE among adolescents over a period of three years with six-month intervals (seven measurements). We found that adolescents most strongly endorsed enhancement AE and that social and coping AE increased with time. Regarding exposure to parental alcohol use as a predictor of AE over time, it appeared that both mothers’ and fathers’ consumption

Contributors

All authors have contributed to (see below) and approved the final manuscript.

Empty CellKSCVROMKEK
Conceptualizing/refining research ideasxxxxx
Literature searchxx
Creating research designxxxxx
Instrument selectionxxxxx
Data collectionxx
Data analysesxxx
Interpretation of data analysesxxxxx
Drafting manuscriptsx
Editing manuscriptxxxxx

Note: KS= Koen Smit, CV= Carmen Voogt, RO= Roy Otten, MK= Marloes Kleinjan, EK= Emmanuel Kuntsche.

Role of funding source

Funding for this study was provided by NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) VIDI grant 452-13-003 awarded to Emmanuel Kuntsche, NWO, Den Haag, The Netherlands. NWO had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Declaration of Competing Interest

No conflict declared.

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