A-SIDE: Video simulation of teen alcohol and marijuana use contexts.

OBJECTIVE: This investigation examined the concurrent validity of a new video simulation assessing adolescent alcohol and marijuana decision making in peer contexts (A-SIDE). METHOD: One hundred eleven youth (60% female; age 14-19 years; 80% White, 12.6% Latino; 24% recruited from treatment centers) completed the A-SIDE simulation, self-report measures of alcohol and marijuana use and disorder symptoms, and measures of alcohol (i.e., drinking motives and expectancies) and marijuana (i.e., expectancies) cognitions in the laboratory. RESULTS: Study findings support concurrent associations between behavioral willingness to use alcohol and marijuana on the simulation and current use variables as well as on drinking motives and marijuana expectancies. Relations with use variables were found even when sample characteristics were controlled. Interestingly, willingness to accept nonalcoholic beverages (e.g., soda) and food offers in the simulation were inversely related to recent alcohol and marijuana use behavior. CONCLUSIONS: These findings are consistent with prior work using laboratory simulations with college students and provide preliminary validity evidence for this procedure. Future work is needed to examine the predictive utility of the A-SIDE with larger and more diverse samples of youth.

C-SIDE: drinking simulation for college students.

OBJECTIVE: Our goals were to develop a realistic simulation of collegiate drinking contexts and evaluate the predictive validity of this methodology. METHOD: After methods development, 88 incoming students (61% women) completed measures of alcohol consumption, alcohol expectancies and motives, and the Collegiate-Simulated Intoxication Digital Elicitation (C-SIDE). Eight months later, students reported recent drinking behavior and alcohol-related consequences. RESULTS: Willingness to drink alcohol on the C-SIDE predicted high-risk drinking at the end of the students' first year above and beyond baseline consumption. Accepting offers of food/nonalcoholic beverages across contexts predicted lower scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test 8 months later. Drinking game contexts elicited different levels of behavioral willingness; a game with explicit heckling elicited less drinking willingness than one in a smaller and more casual environment. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the integration of social context into the assessment of alcohol-related decision making and the further development of strategies to understand context-dependent phenomena.