A social learning perspective: a model of parenting styles, self-regulation, perceived drinking control, and alcohol use and problems.

BACKGROUND: This investigation sought to determine how different parenting styles are related to general self-regulatory processes that are linked to alcohol use and abuse. Self-regulation and, more specifically, thoughts of control over drinking are forms of positive self-control mechanisms. Parenting styles are known determinants of both negative and positive self-control mechanisms in offspring. According to social learning theory, stronger relationships between parenting style and self-regulatory processes would be expected from the parent who is the same sex as the respondent. METHODS: A total of 144 female and 107 male college students currently using alcohol were administered a questionnaire on their alcohol use and problems, perceived style of parenting (authoritarian, permissive, or authoritative) of their parents, self-regulation, and perceived control of drinking. A model linking parenting styles, self-regulatory processes, and control over drinking with alcohol use and alcohol problems was tested across sex groups by using structural equation modeling. RESULTS: In general, the parenting style of the parent of the same sex as the respondent's was found to be significantly related to self-regulation, which is known to be protective against alcohol use and abuse. A permissive parent of the same sex as the respondent was negatively associated with good self-regulatory processes for both men and women. Having an authoritative mother was also shown to be related to higher levels of self-regulation for women. CONCLUSIONS: Self-regulation mediated the pathway from a permissive parenting style to perceived drinking control, which, in turn, mediated the pathway from self-regulation to alcohol use and problems. Finally, self-regulation mediated the positive pathway from an authoritative mother to perceived control over drinking for women.

Effects of alcoholic beverage, instigation, and inhibition on expectancies of aggressive behavior.

To investigate the role of alcohol expectancy, situational factors, and personality variables in predicting postdrinking aggression, two questionnaire studies were conducted. Subjects were randomly assigned to imagine themselves and their responses in a scenario situation, which was a combination of different beverages (soda vs. alcohol), instigation, and inhibition conditions. Both studies found significant 3-way interactions of personality aggression proneness (Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory Assault scale) by beverage condition and by situational cue condition on subjects' reported likelihood of engaging in aggressive behavior. Expected aggression was strongly associated with greater aggression proneness in the nonalcoholic condition when there was a situational cue (low inhibition in Study 1, high instigation in Study 2) invoking aggression, but not when the situational cue was absent. This relationship between aggression proneness and expected aggression, however, was attenuated in the alcoholic drink conditions in both studies. In general, it was found that the effect of alcohol on expected aggression was minor relative to the large and significant effects of aggression proneness, instigation, and inhibition.

Effects of sensation seeking, instruction set, and alcohol/placebo administration on aggressive behavior.

Sixty-three male college students were assessed on the number of aversive sound blasts they administered in response to their fictitious task partner's blasts in a variation of the Taylor aggression paradigm. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three alcohol dosing conditions (placebo, placebo/expect alcohol, and alcohol) and one of three instruction conditions (aggression-told the noise blasts were meant to disrupt task performance; altruism-told the noise blasts were meant to improve concentration; ambiguous-either aggression or altruism). A significant three-way interaction of dosing condition by instruction by subjects' sensation seeking was found, such that high sensation seekers in the alcohol condition, compared to low sensation seekers, delivered more noise blasts in the aggression instruction condition, whereas they administered fewer blasts in the altruism condition. High sensation seekers in the placebo condition yielded an opposite pattern of results. The results were interpreted in terms of the effects of "alcohol myopia" on the disinhibition of socially disapproved behaviors and in terms of the moderating effects of personality and situational factors.

Effect of religion and religiosity on alcohol use in a college student sample.

Two hundred and sixty-three alcohol using college students completed a questionnaire on their levels of alcohol use, problems with alcohol use, reasons for drinking, perceptions of control over drinking, impulsivity, venturesomeness, irrational beliefs, neuroticism, expectations of alcohol effects, depression, social norms, religious affiliation and intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. Analyses of variance revealed that students with no religious affiliation reported significantly higher levels of drinking frequency and quantity, getting drunk, celebratory reasons for drinking and perceived drinking norms than those of either Catholic or Protestant religious affiliation, while no significant differences across groups were found for alcohol use problems. Protestants reported significantly higher levels of perceived drinking control than Catholics. Intrinsic religiosity, reflecting one's ego involvement with the tenets of one's religion, appeared to play a more important positive role over drinking behavior for Protestants than for Catholics.

Concepts of drugs: differences in conceptual structure across groups with different levels of drug experience.

Seventy-seven college students varying in degree of drug use experience rated the perceived similarities of all possible combinations of 16 drugs classes (cigarettes, other tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, barbiturates, minor and major tranquilizers, amphetamines, amphetamine derivatives, cocaine, heroin, opiates, hallucinogens, inhalants, PCP, anti-depressants). Multi-dimensional scaling (INDSCAL) and network models (PFNET) indicated that abstainers had only one pharmacological category involving sedatives/depressants, and that they attached more importance to whether drugs were licit vs. illicit than to whether they were depressants vs. stimulants. Conceptions became more coherent, differentiated and based on pharmacological properties for more experienced drug users. In line with previous work, groups with greater experience with drugs had more sophisticated conceptions not only about the drugs they had used, but also about drugs they had not used. These findings suggest that early on in drug behavior sophisticated and interrelated concepts are developing that should be taken into account when designing interventions and information campaigns.

Stress, depression, irrational beliefs, and alcohol use and problems in a college student sample.

One-hundred thirty-five alcohol-using college students completed a questionnaire on their levels of alcohol use, moderate-to-severe problems with alcohol use, the Eysenck 1.7 measure of impulsiveness and venturesomeness, the Zung depression scale, the "Hassles and Uplifts" scale of life stresses, and a scale of proneness to irrational beliefs. Impulsivity and venturesomeness were significantly correlated with quantity-frequency of alcohol use, but not with the occurrence of alcohol use problems; whereas depression, stress, and irrational beliefs were significantly correlated with alcohol problems, but not with alcohol use. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the effect of stress on alcohol problems was mediated by depression, whereas the effect of depression, in turn, was mediated by irrational beliefs.

A longitudinal study of family practice residents' attitudes toward alcoholism.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study sought to analyze whether the experience of residency training at a public hospital where alcoholism is highly prevalent, combined with a didactic program emphasizing community resources, would result in changes in residents' baseline attitudes. Previous research has suggested that alcoholism-related attitudes are therapeutically important. METHODS: Forty-three family practice residents took the Marcus Alcoholism Questionnaire at the beginning, and at the end, of their 3-year training program. Initial scores were compared with an "expert" sample (Toronto Alcohol and Drug Research Foundation). Residents' initial and final scores were also compared. RESULTS: Residents' entry attitudes were similar to those of the "expert" sample. On six of nine scales, there were no significant changes between entry and exit attitudes. At final testing, however, residents were significantly more likely to agree that a periodic excessive drinker can be an alcoholic (t = -3.15, P < .01), that alcoholism is not an illness (t = -2.57, P < .05), and that alcoholism is a harmless voluntary indulgence (t = 2.08, P < .05). However, exit means for the latter two scales still remained in a functional category, when compared with the expert sample. CONCLUSIONS: Resident attitudes did not show any substantial deterioration during the course of training. The structured curriculum emphasizing community resources and positive role models may have counterbalanced the frustrations of the clinical training site.

Alcohol norms, expectancies, and reasons for drinking and alcohol use in a U.S. versus a Japanese college sample.

Two hundred eighty-two students at Arizona State University in the U.S. and 339 students at Okayama University in Japan completed a questionnaire on their alcohol use, expectancies of the effects of alcohol on their own and others' moods and behaviors, the desirability of these effects, norms of significant others for levels of alcohol use and the subject's desire to comply with these norms, and reasons for drinking and not drinking alcohol. Although frequencies of current drinkers versus abstainers did not differ between the two samples, the U.S. students began regular alcohol use at a significantly earlier age, currently drank more alcohol, had higher alcohol expectancies for emotional responses, and endorsed more celebratory reasons for drinking than their Japanese counterparts. U.S. students, however, had lower expectancies for flushing and lower perceived norms for drinking. Hierarchical multiple regressions performed using data from the current drinkers indicated that expectancies of disinhibition and especially aggressiveness after alcohol use, alcohol norms, celebratory (but not pathological) reasons for drinking, and reasons for not drinking were more predictive of reported levels of alcohol use among the U.S. students as compared with the Japanese students.

Impulsiveness and subjective effects of intravenous cocaine administration in the laboratory.

Cardiovascular and subjective responses to placebo and 40-mg intravenous (iv) cocaine injections were measured in 29 male iv cocaine users: most subjects received each of these injections on two separate occasions. Most of the subjects also completed various measures of psychopathology and personality. Although the small sample size made any conclusions tentative, an expected significant association between impulsivity and subjective euphoria following 40-mg cocaine administration was obtained, whereas associations of personality measures with cardiovascular responses to cocaine administration were inconsistent.

Effects of alcohol administration on the disinhibition of racial prejudice.

Eighty-two white male undergraduate social drinkers were selected from high and low scorers on the Modern Racism Scale. Subjects were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 balanced placebo design conditions. After consuming their beverages, subjects viewed a videotape interaction between a Black and a White confederate. The subjects were told to rate the behaviors of the confederates, including an ambiguous shove of the White confederate by the Black confederate. It was expected, according to attribution theory, that high racism subjects would label the shove as more aggressive when they believed they had consumed alcohol, because alcohol could be used as an excuse for the socially unacceptable behavior of racial discrimination. A mood measure was also administered. Significant main effects of racism group and alcohol dosing were found for seriousness of aggression ratings, with high racism subjects and those expecting alcohol reporting more serious aggression, but the racism group by dosing condition interaction was not significant. A significant racism group by dosing condition interaction was found for the tension/anxiety mood scale, with greater tension being reported by high racism subjects who received alcohol. The results were related to theories of alcohol's disinhibiting and attention-limiting properties.

Familial transmission of cognitive abilities in offspring tested in adolescence and adulthood: a longitudinal study.

As part of a follow-up study of now-adult offspring who originally participated in the Hawaii Family Study of Cognition (HFSC) from 1972 to 1976, 49 females and 46 males from 73 families of Caucasian ancestry and 63 females and 55 males from 92 families of Japanese ancestry were retested (average test-retest interval, 13 years) on the battery of cognitive abilities tests they took as adolescents. Age-corrected scale scores for verbal ability, spatial ability, perceptual speed, visual memory, and unrotated first principal component were calculated for the offspring's fathers and mothers, for their original HFSC testing, and for the retesting. Model-fitting procedures for a univariate model of familial transmission indicated significant differences in the parameters between the two racial/ethnic groups for all five cognitive abilities scales. These procedures also demonstrated no significant differences in familialities for offspring abilities in adolescence vs. mature adulthood across all five abilities scales and both racial/ethnic groups.

Family background, cognitive abilities, and personality as predictors of education and occupational attainment across two generations.

This study reports on the relative influences of parental attainment and cognitive ability and subjects' own cognitive ability, personality, and social attitudes on the educational and occupational attainments and incomes of 183 Generation 3 subjects of Caucasian ancestry and 186 of Japanese ancestry originally tested in 1972-76 in the Hawaii Family Study of Cognition (HFSC) and re-tested in 1987-88. In contrast to earlier reports of sex differences in the influence of Generation 2 attainment and on Generation 3 attainment when these offspring were younger, family background had a trivial influence and own cognitive ability had a substantial influence on educational attainment for both racial/ethnic groups and both sexes. For income, however, own cognitive ability was only a significant predictor for male subjects. Within-family correlational analyses also supported this sex difference in influences on attainment.

Does psychomotor sensitivity to alcohol predict subsequent alcohol use?

Data from 42 male and 58 female subjects who participated in the Colorado Alcohol Research on Twins and Adoptees (CARTA) project were subjected to model-fitting analyses. The aim of the present study was to use linear structural equation models to determine whether differences in previously measured psychomotor sensitivity to alcohol predict differences in self-reported alcohol consumption over a 4-year period. LISREL model-fitting results indicate that, for male subjects, only rail walking insensitivity is predictive of alcohol use reported 2 years after their initial CARTA testing. For females, only hand steadiness sensitivity is predictive of alcohol use reported 2 years after their initial CARTA testing. The results for males support a hypothesis that would consider alcohol insensitive individuals at greater risk for alcohol abuse. The female results, however, would argue against such a hypothesis. With only one measure of sensitivity predicting alcohol use at only one out of four time points, in both men and women, the overall results suggest that our three measures of psychomotor sensitivity to alcohol are, in general, poor predictors of alcohol consumption in this sample.

Reliability of sibling reports on parental drinking behaviors.

Questionnaire data from the Colorado Alcohol Research on Twins and Adoptees (CARTA) were analyzed to explore the reliability of sibling responses to items from the CARTA Family Alcoholism History Questionnaire (FHQ) concerning parental drinking behaviors. Subjects included 142 pairs of male and female, twin and nontwin siblings who reported on paternal and maternal problem drinking. FHQ items were summed to produce drinking-problem scales for fathers and mothers. There was generally good concordance across sibling reports of parental problem-drinking symptoms. There was a significant gender difference in that male offspring were more in agreement about their mothers' drinking behavior, while female offspring were more in agreement about their fathers' drinking behavior. For the most part, objective items, such as having two or more drunk-driving arrests, were more reliable (paternal kappa total = .56, maternal = .66) than subjective items, such as being happy only when drinking (paternal = .24, maternal = -.03). This evidence for reliability of sibling reports about parental drinking does seem to validate the use of such questionnaire data in alcohol studies.

Alcohol expectancies and behavioral and emotional responses to placebo versus alcohol administration.

Forty normal drinking males were recruited for a study of "responses to alcohol." Following the completion of an alcohol use questionnaire that included measures of expectancies of alcohol effects, subjects were randomly assigned to either receive the actual 0.6 g/kg dose of ethanol to bring their peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to near 0.075 g/dl or to receive a placebo dose. Neither the subject nor the tester was aware of the condition to which the subject has been assigned. Prior to dosing and at repeated 1/2-hr intervals following dosing, subjects were tested on a battery of motor coordination, perceptual speed, reaction time, and mood measures. Significant alcohol effects were found for several measures, but the only significant interaction of individual differences in expectancies of alcohol effects with alcohol dosing occurred for self-perceived intoxication. Subjects who expected more disinhibition after alcohol dosing and who were administered alcohol reported more intoxication than those expecting less disinhibition, while no expectancy effect was found for subjects administered the placebo.

Alcohol norms and expectations as predictors of alcohol use and problems in a college student sample.

Two-hundred thirty-one alcohol-using college students completed a questionnaire on their levels of alcohol use, moderate to severe problems with alcohol use, expectations of the effects of alcohol on their own and others' moods and behaviors, the desirability of these effects, norms of significant others for levels of alcohol use and the subject's desire to comply with these norms, reasons for drinking and not drinking alcohol, and a personality measure. Expectations of alcohol effects, norms of significant others, and reasons for drinking and not drinking alcohol were all significant independent predictors of alcohol use and problems with alcohol use. Expectation x desirability of effects formulations and norms x desire to comply with norms formulations did not improve the predictive power of the expectations and norms scales.

Magical thinking and alcohol labels.

31 men and 29 women were randomly assigned to conditions in which they drank water they had labeled as either WATER, ALCOHOL, or NOT ALCOHOL, then completed a mood measure. Subjects given the ALCOHOL label who reported low frequency of using alcohol had a significantly greater positive mood and a less negative mood than subjects in the other conditions.

Impulsivity, sensation seeking, and behavioral and emotional responses to alcohol.

Three hundred forty-two male and female subjects from the Colorado Alcohol Research on Twins and Adoptees returned a mailed questionnaire that included the Eysenck Impulsivity-Venturesomeness-Empathy scales. These subjects had previously been tested in a procedure in which they were given a 0.8 g/kg dose of ethanol to bring their peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to near 0.10 g/dl, given topping doses to maintain this BAC over a 3-hr period, and repeatedly tested on a battery of diverse physiological, psychomotor, perceptual speed, and mood measures. Impulsivity was significantly correlated with higher levels of self-reported alcohol use and the occurrence of alcohol use problems in males, while both impulsivity and venturesomeness (sensation seeking) were significantly correlated with lessened motor impairment following alcohol use in males. These personality measures, however, were not significantly correlated with mood measures following initial alcohol dosing. Impulsivity and venturesomeness were uncorrelated with alcohol use and responses to alcohol in females, but as with males, impulsivity was related to the occurrence of alcohol use problems in females.

Anticipated and subjective sensitivities to alcohol.

The development and maintenance of alcohol use patterns may depend, in part, on differences between how an individual anticipates he will respond to alcohol and how he appears to others when he is drinking. Such differences may introduce bias in decisions regarding which activities are safe while under the influence of an intoxicating amount of alcohol. This study of 387 participants of the Colorado Alcohol Research on Twins and Adoptees project examined the interrelationships of anticipated, subjective and observer-judged sensitivity to a blood alcohol concentrations of about 0.1 g/dl (approximated by breath alcohol concentration). Differences among the sensitivity measures were dependent upon recent alcohol drinking history and individual differences in actual sensitivity (as observer-rated). The results were consistent with hypotheses that people with little drinking experience may overestimate how intoxicated they will be, that heavier drinkers may develop chronic tolerance to the intoxicating effects and that denial may play a role in both subjective and anticipated sensitivity.

Familial transmission of alcohol use norms and expectancies and reported alcohol use.

Members of 183 families (biological parents and one adult offspring) completed questionnaires on their quantity and frequency of alcohol use, what they would consider a "normal" quantity-frequency of alcohol use, "problem" quantity-frequency of use, flushing after alcohol use, and other expected physiological and subjective responses to alcohol. Within individuals, own quantity-frequency of alcohol use was moderately negatively correlated with flushing after one drink or less ("fast flushing"), but more highly positively correlated with judged normal alcohol use and with expected subjective effects. Spouse resemblances were low for quantity-frequency of alcohol use and flushing, but high for alcohol use norms and expected physiological and subjective responses. Parent-offspring resemblances were low to moderate for own alcohol use and flushing, but moderate to high for expected physiological and subjective effects. These results were discussed in terms of the effects of genetically transmitted flushing after alcohol use and culturally transmitted alcohol norms and expectations on alcohol use.