Developmental relations between alcohol expectancies and social norms in predicting alcohol onset

I need new friends! Changes in perceived peer drinking norms and developmental outcomes across the transition to college

The current study investigated changes in proximal descriptive alcohol use norms from high school to college, social integration as a predictor of stable versus shifting peer norms, and the consequences of norm profile membership for developmental outcomes. Using data (N = 9753 12th grade students; 59% female; 80% White, 7% Black, 5% Hispanic, 5% Asian/Pacific Islander, 3% other races/ethnicities) from the Monitoring the Future panel study, we identified five distinct norm profiles-three stable profiles (high, moderate-high, and low) and two shifting profiles (increasing, declining)-that had unique patterns of perceived friend alcohol use norms. Social integration distinguished norm profile membership, and we observed particular detriments to outcomes for those in the stable high peer norm profile.

Influence of Drinking Context and Age of Onset on Alcohol Consumption Patterns and Motivations Among Uruguayan Adults

Objectives

An early age of drinking onset is linked to a greater likelihood of alcohol-related problems. Alcohol use occurs in places featuring characteristic social groups, and different drinking contexts are associated with different levels of alcohol-related outcomes. Drinking context may affect drinking motives, expectations or alcohol-related outcomes in concert with individual-level variables. The study aimed to examine how the preferred drinking context and age of the first drink affects the occurrence and volume of alcohol use, drinking motives and alcohol-related expectations.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted at Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay, from September 2020 to January 2021. Uruguayan citizens ≥18 years old were asked about their preferred drinking context, the age of first alcohol use and alcohol consumption frequency. In addition, the Drinking Motives Questionnaire and Alcohol Outcome Expectancies Questionnaire were used.

Results

A total of 752 Uruguayan citizens were included. The distribution of alcohol consumption across social contexts was not influenced by the age of first alcohol use. Those who began drinking early and endorsed solitary drinking reported higher frequency of drinking (P <0.05) and coping motives (P <0.05) than any other group. Those who drank at parties reported more conformity motives than most of the groups (P <0.01). An early age of drinking onset was associated with greater enhancement and social motives (P <0.05) and higher alcohol expectancies for stress reduction and social facilitation (P <0.005).

Conclusion

Solitary drinking as a high-risk drinking context is likely to interact with the age of first alcohol use, suggesting that drinking in specific contexts is associated with specific drinking motivations and expectancies. This study represents progress towards exploring factors that influence alcohol consumption among a broader range of socio-cultural populations.

Social influences on alcohol outcome expectancy development from childhood to young adulthood: A narrative review

Purpose of Review

Alcohol outcome expectancies emerge in early childhood, develop throughout adolescence, and predict alcohol outcomes well into adulthood. Social factors shape how expectancies are learned in myriad ways, yet such social learning influences seldom are examined in the context of developmental factors. This review summarized literature on the social origins of alcohol expectancies through vicarious (observational) and experiential (direct) alcohol-related learning from childhood to young adulthood within a social learning framework.

Recent Findings

Young children primarily endorse negative expectancies, which decline rapidly with age amidst escalations in positive expectancies across adolescence. Parents and peers can contribute to vicarious learning about alcohol and facilitate experiential learning in different ways and to varying degrees across development. Media and social media, which children are increasingly exposed to as they mature, often depict alcohol-outcome relations that may further contribute to expectancy development in later adolescence and young adulthood.

Summary

Social influences on alcohol expectancy learning are complex and change over time, although this dynamic complexity typically is not depicted in extant literature. Developmentally-informed research capturing co-occurring shifts in social influences and alcohol expectancies is needed.

Sociocultural influences on alcohol expectancies in early adolescence: Findings from the ABCD study

OBJECTIVE

Alcohol expectancies (AE) during early adolescence predict early alcohol use initiation and problem drinking both cross-sectionally and prospectively well into adulthood. Yet, our understanding of the sociocultural factors associated with AE during this development period remains limited. This study examines associations between AE and sociocultural factors across various domains (i.e., individual, family, peer, school, community, and culture) in a demographically diverse sample of 10- to 14-year-old youth in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study).

METHOD

This cross-sectional study used 2-year follow-up data from the ABCD Release 3.0 for N = 5,322 early adolescents (Mage = 12 years [SD = 0.6]; 47% male). Approximately 60% identified as non-Hispanic/Latinx White, 17% as Hispanic/Latinx, 11% as non-Hispanic/Latinx Black, 2% as non-Hispanic/Latinx Asian, and 11% as mixed/other race-ethnicity. Separate models for positive and negative AE outcomes were conducted using linear mixed-effect models while controlling for demographic covariates.

RESULTS

Positive AE were most strongly associated with familism, followed by other peer, school, community, and cultural level factors. Negative AE were most strongly associated with the peer-level factor of relational victimization and the individual-level factor of negative life events, followed by other peer, school, and community-level factors.

CONCLUSION

The present findings reveal the potential constellation of sociocultural factors that may serve as targets for modifying AE during the middle school years. Study results also underscore the need for future research that integrates cultural factors into our understanding of alcohol use risk and resilience during early adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescents' perceptions of alcohol portrayals in the media and their impact on cognitions and behaviors

OBJECTIVE

Exposure to alcohol in the media is pervasive and may influence adolescents' perceptions and use of alcohol. The purpose of this study was to better understand how adolescents perceive alcohol-related content in both entertainment and social media, with a focus on the valence of portrayals (i.e., positive, negative) and impacts on cognitions and behaviors.

METHOD

Participants were 40 high school students (60% female). Nine focus groups were conducted via videoconferencing, stratified by grade (9th/10th, 11th/12th) and gender. Transcripts were analyzed via template-style thematic analyses to identify themes.

RESULTS

Six themes were developed, including (a) some portrayals of alcohol may increase likelihood of using alcohol, (b) some portrayals of alcohol in the media can discourage drinking, (c) sometimes truly negative consequences of alcohol are portrayed positively or downplayed, (d) media portrayals of alcohol are perceived to be based in reality but are at times exaggerated, (e) adolescent and adult alcohol use is portrayed differently in entertainment media, and (f) the extent to which adolescents are influenced by the media may depend on their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and education.

CONCLUSIONS

Adolescents have awareness of media portrayals of alcohol, both positive and negative, and their associated impacts. Findings highlight the need for much more work to understand the conditions under which, and for whom, exposure to different types of positive portrayals of alcohol in the media translate into positive expectancies about alcohol or drinking motives. Such work may ultimately inform intervention targets to reduce early initiation and/or risky drinking among adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessing Peer Influence and Susceptibility to Peer Influence Using Individual and Dyadic Moderators in a Social Network Context: The Case of Adolescent Alcohol Misuse

Higher accepted friends are known to influence the alcohol misuse of lower accepted friends, but not the reverse. The present study was designed to address the origins of this influence: Are higher accepted friends particularly influential or are lower accepted friends particularly susceptible to influence? To address this question, we introduce an innovative application of longitudinal social network techniques (RSIENA) designed to distinguish being influential from being susceptible to influence. The results revealed that influence was a product of heightened susceptibility among low accepted adolescents, rather than heightened influence among high accepted adolescents. The findings are consistent with claims that low accepted youth fear the consequences of nonconformity and adjust their behavior to more closely resemble their affiliates.

Comprehensive measurement invariance of alcohol outcome expectancies among adolescents using regularized moderated nonlinear factor analysis

Alcohol outcomes expectancies (AOEs) are robust predictors of alcohol initiation and escalation of drinking behavior among adolescents. Although measurement invariance is a prerequisite for inferring valid comparisons of AOEs across groups (e.g., age), empirical evidence is lacking. In a secondary data analysis study, we employed regularized moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA) to simultaneously test differential item functioning (DIF) across age, sex, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), and alcohol initiation for a 22-item, two-factor measure of positive and negative AOEs among adolescents (analytic n = 936 drawn from a parent study of 1023 adolescents). Evidence of DIF was minimal, with no DIF for the negative AOE factor and DIF for only two items of the positive AOE factor. The item "feel grown up" exhibited DIF by age, and the item "feel romantic" exhibited DIF by SES. After accounting for DIF, the positive AOE latent factor mean differed by SES, age, and alcohol initiation, and exhibited lower variability by alcohol initiation. The negative AOE latent factor mean differed by sex and SES, with greater variability by SES and age and lower variability by alcohol initiation. Group-differences findings for age and alcohol initiation are consistent with prior work, and differences by sex and SES are a new contribution to the literature that should prompt additional research to ensure replicability. The present study demonstrates the utility of the MNLFA technique for examining comprehensive measurement invariance, particularly for applied researchers who seek to examine substantive research questions while accounting for any DIF present in the scales used.

Adolescent decision making: A decade in review

Research in the past decade has highlighted the nuances of adolescent decision making. In this review article, we summarize several themes evident in the field of developmental science including the redefinition of adolescence and the ways in which adolescent decision-making capabilities converge with or diverge from those of adults. While the decision-making process is similar for adolescents and adults in contexts that encourage deliberation and reflection, adolescents and adults differ in contexts which preclude deliberation vis-à-vis high emotional arousal. We also discuss the reconceptualization of adolescent behavior, including risk taking, as adaptive. That is, characteristics of adolescence, including impulsivity, the importance of peers, and novelty seeking, are normative, evolutionarily advantageous, and essential for positive development. While these features manifest in negative, health-compromising ways (e.g., risky driving and criminal behavior), they also foster growth and exploration. We conclude with a discussion of potential avenues for future research.

Beyond the average brain: individual differences in social brain development are associated with friendship quality

We tested whether adolescents differ from each other in the structural development of the social brain and whether individual differences in social brain development predicted variability in friendship quality development. Adolescents (N = 299, M_age T1 =13.98 years) were followed across three biannual waves. We analysed self-reported friendship quality with the best friend at T1 and T3, and bilateral measures of surface area and cortical thickness of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and precuneus across all waves. At the group level, growth curve models confirmed non-linear decreases of surface area and cortical thickness in social brain regions. We identified substantial individual differences in levels and change rates of social brain regions, especially for surface area of the mPFC, pSTS and TPJ. Change rates of cortical thickness varied less between persons. Higher levels of mPFC surface area and cortical thickness predicted stronger increases in friendship quality over time. Moreover, faster cortical thinning of mPFC surface area predicted a stronger increase in friendship quality. Higher levels of TPJ cortical thickness predicted lower friendship quality. Together, our results indicate heterogeneity in social brain development and how this variability uniquely predicts friendship quality development.

The Altered Course of Learning: How Alcohol Outcome Expectancies Are Shaped by First Drinking Experiences

According to expectancy theory, outcome expectancies are first formed vicariously (through observing other people) and then through direct experience. This cohort-sequential longitudinal study explored these expectancy origins in 1,023 youths (52% female, ages 10.5-15.5 years at recruitment, M = 12.47 years, SD = 0.95). Discontinuous multilevel growth models described patterns of change in expectancies before and after the first experience of distinct drinking milestones (i.e., first sip, first full drink, first heavy-drinking situation). Youths' expectations for positive and negative drinking outcomes generally increased and decreased over adolescence, respectively, reflecting general developmental trends. Drinking experiences altered learning trajectories, however, reifying positive expectancies and invalidating negative expectancies at each milestone and altering the course of expectancy change thereafter. For positive outcome expectancies, the influence of direct experience on learning was stronger when drinking milestones were met at an earlier age. Conversely, invalidation of negative expectancies was stronger when the first-drink milestone was met at a later age.

Perceived Substance Use Norms Among Jailed Women with Alcohol Use Disorders

BACKGROUND

Social norms regarding substance use predict substance use behaviors. In a sample of jailed women with alcohol use disorders (AUDs), we compared (i) jailed women's perceptions of the US women population's rates of substance use, with US women's actual rates of substance use; (ii) jailed women's perceived rates of substance use by US women, with their perceptions of use by their own friends; and (iii) US women's actual rates of substance use, with observed sample substance use rates.

METHODS

Participants were 205 jailed women who met criteria for an AUD. We used the 1-sample or dependent-samples t-test to make the comparisons.

RESULTS

Participants overestimated US women's rates of substance use and incarceration rates. They perceived their friends' substance use as less common than US women's. The jailed women reported higher rates of their own substance use than actual rates by US women. In addition, jailed women self-reported less cannabis use, but more alcohol and cocaine use and cigarette smoking, than they perceived their friends to have used. The more women perceived their friends as drinking, the less they had a goal to drink less or abstain from drinking postincarceration; in contrast, perceptions of US women's drinking were not related to personal goals for drinking.

CONCLUSIONS

Interventions that correct misperceptions about substance use norms may have utility for jailed women with AUDs.

Psychological Processes Underlying Effects of Alcohol Marketing on Youth Drinking

OBJECTIVE

Evidence increasingly suggests that alcohol marketing plays a significant role in facilitating underage drinking. This article presents a review of empirical studies and relevant theoretical models proposing plausible psychological mechanisms or processes responsible for associations between alcohol-related marketing and youth drinking.

METHOD

We review key psychological processes pertaining to cognitive mechanisms and social cognitive models that operate at the individual or intrapersonal level (attitude formation, expectancies) and the social or interpersonal level (personal identity, social identity, social norms). We use dominant psychological and media theories to support our statements of putative causal inferences, including the Message Interpretation Processing Model, Prototype Willingness Model, and Reinforcing Spirals Model.

RESULTS

Based on the evidence, we propose an integrated conceptual model that depicts relevant psychological processes as they work together in a complex chain of influence, and we highlight those constructs that have received the greatest support in the literature.

CONCLUSIONS

The evidence to date suggests that perceptions of others' behaviors and attitudes in relation to alcohol (social norms) may be a more potent driver of youth drinking than evaluations of drinking outcomes (expectancies). Considerably more research--especially experimental research--is needed to understand the extent to which theoretically relevant psychological processes have unique effects on adolescent and young adult drinking behavior, with the ultimate goal of identifying modifiable intervention targets to produce reductions in the initiation and maintenance of underage alcohol use.

Childhood social context in relation to alcohol expectancy through early adolescence: A latent profile approach

BACKGROUND

The present study aims to (i) identify patterns in the changes of endorsed positive alcohol expectancies (AEs) through early adolescence and (ii) examine associated childhood social context predictors of such profiles.

METHODS

We used three waves of longitudinal data from the Alcohol-Related Experiences among Children. The baseline sample comprised 928 6th graders from 17 elementary schools in northern Taiwan (response rate = 60 %); subsequent follow-up was conducted at 7th and 8th grade (follow-up rate = 88 %). Data concerning three domains of positive AEs (i.e., global positive transformation, enhancing social behaviors, and promoting relaxation), social context, and alcohol drinking were collected by self-administered questionnaires. Longitudinal latent profile and survey multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the association estimates, stratified by childhood alcohol initiation.

RESULTS

Three distinct profiles (decreasing, stable, and increasing) of positive AEs were identified for the alcohol-naïve children (n = 466); observing paternal drinking and watching TV more than two hours per day at baseline were strongly linked with the stable and increasing AE profiles (aOR = 1.96-4.80). For the alcohol-experienced children, four profiles (low decreasing, low increasing, high decreasing, and high increasing) emerged; observing maternal drinking was predictive for the high-increasing profile (aOR = 2.94). Regardless of childhood alcohol initiation, recent alcohol use appeared to be the strongest predictor for the increasing profiles of positive AEs.

CONCLUSIONS

Strategies addressing pro-alcohol social contexts that facilitate a prominent increase in positive AEs should be considered when devising preventive programs targeting underage drinking behaviors and problems.

Developmental considerations in survival models as applied to substance use research

Survival analysis is a class of models that are ideal for evaluating questions of timing of events, which makes them well-suited for modeling the development of a process such as initiation of substance use, development of addiction, or post-treatment recovery. The focus of this review paper is to demonstrate how survival models operate in a broader developmental framework and to offer guidance on selecting the appropriate model on the basis of the research question at hand. We provide a basic overview of survival models and then identify several key issues, explain how they pertain to research in the addiction field, and describe studies that utilize survival models to address questions about timing. We discuss the importance of carefully selecting the metric and origin of the time scale that corresponds to developmental process under investigation and we describe types of censoring/truncation. We describe the value of modeling covariates as time-invariant versus time-varying, and make the distinction between time-varying covariates and time-varying effects of covariates. We also explain how to test for substantive differences due to the timing of the assessment of the predictor. We finish the paper with a presentation of relatively novel extensions of survival models, including models that integrate standard statistical mediational analysis with discrete-time survival analysis, models that simultaneously consider order and timing of multiple events, and models that involve joint modeling of longitudinal and survival data. We also present our own substantive examples of various models in an Appendix containing annotated syntax and output.

Friend Selection and Influence Effects for First Heavy Drinking Episode in Adolescence

OBJECTIVE

Heavy alcohol consumption has both immediate and longer-term risks for adolescents. Using a dynamic network modeling approach, this study investigated the role of adult supervision and affiliation with heavy drinking friends in predicting the risk of a first heavy drinking episode in a community sample of adolescents.

METHOD

Two cohorts of ninth grade youth (n = 1,220, 48% male) from seven communities were surveyed three times over the course of the school year (fall, winter, and spring), each time assessing their friendship networks, whether they had ever experienced a heavy drinking episode, frequency of heavy drinking over the past month, and the amount of unsupervised time spent with each of their friends over the past month.

RESULTS

Participants were more likely to form friendships with classmates with similar recent heavy drinking behavior, but similarity on adult supervision of time spent with friends had no effect on friendship selection. A negative interaction was observed between these two similarity effects, implying that they were antisynergistic. Risk for a first heavy drinking episode was greater for youth with friends who had experienced such an episode already. This effect was no stronger if these friends had more such episodes in the previous 30 days but was marginally stronger if the friends reported less adult supervision.

CONCLUSIONS

Heavy drinking-related friendships increase the risk of a first heavy drinking episode. Adult supervision of time spent with friends may reduce this risk. Results support interventions that target the spread of heavy drinking through adolescent social ecosystems, in addition to targeting the most at-risk individuals.

Transitions Through Stages of Alcohol Use, Use Disorder and Remission: Findings from Te Rau Hinengaro, The New Zealand Mental Health Survey

Aims

To understand transitions from alcohol use to disorder, we examine timing of transitions between stages of alcohol use and associations between transitions and socio-demographic factors.

Short summary

Using nationally representative data, we found that the majority of alcohol use disorders develop by age 25. Increased alcohol use within a participant's cohort was associated with subsequent transition across all stages of alcohol use and disorder. Fifty percent of dependence cases had not remitted after 9 years.

Methods

A nationally representative sample with a 73% response rate included 12,992 participants aged 16 and older. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI 3.0) was used to assess age at initial alcohol consumption, commencement of regular consumption, symptoms of alcohol abuse and dependence, and year-long remission. Alcohol consumption in an age- and gender-matched cohort, education, gender and age at commencement of use were investigated as covariates.

Results

Among all respondents, 94.6% used alcohol, 85.1% used alcohol regularly, 11.4 and 4.6% had developed alcohol abuse and dependence disorders, respectively. Of those with an abuse or dependence disorder, 79.9 and 67.2% had remitted, respectively. Increased alcohol use within a participant's cohort was associated with subsequent transition across all stages. The majority of disorders had developed by age 25. Considerable time was spent with disorder; 50% of dependence cases had not remitted after 9 years. Men were at greater risk of disorder and less likely to remit.

Conclusions

Interventions should target young people and cohort-specific consumption with resources also allocated to long-term treatment provision for alcohol dependency.

Adolescent recanting of alcohol use: A longitudinal investigation of time-varying intra-individual predictors

BACKGROUND

Recanting - denying previous reports of lifetime substance use - occurs frequently in longitudinal investigations of adolescent substance use. While research has focused on how individual differences contribute to recanting, intra-individual factors associated with recanting over time remain understudied.

METHODS

Adolescents (n = 1023) were assessed six times between 2009 - 2015. The sample included participants who reported ever-sipping alcohol in at least one assessment who maintained or recanted ever-sipping at the subsequent assessment (n = 543, 53.1% of full sample; 54.5% female; 84.9% white; 89.5% non-Hispanic). The majority (58.6%) of the sample recanted ever-sipping. We fit linear mixed models to investigate whether prospective changes in perceived peer drinking, peer approval, alcohol expectancies, and fear of reprisal predicted recanting. To explore whether mechanisms of recanting differed for delayed (i.e., two assessments or later) recanting, we refit the models in a subset of data excluding immediate (i.e., subsequent assessment) recanters.

RESULTS

Prospective increases in perceived peer drinking (OR = 0.65), peer approval of drinking (OR = 0.82), and positive and negative alcohol expectancies (OR = 0.96; 0.98, respectively) predicted lower odds of recanting. Similar effects were observed among only delayed recanters.

CONCLUSION

Time-varying, intra-individual factors uniquely predicted recanting over time. Although most recanting occurs immediately following the initial report of ever-sipping, the observed effects were consistent between delayed recanters and the sample as a whole. Considering the systematic patterns evident in recanting, researchers should consider using computer-assisted or other research methods that minimize or verify recanting when it occurs while also informing missing data models.

Alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana expectancies as predictors of substance use initiation in adolescence: A longitudinal examination

Outcome expectancies have been found to be predictive of substance use. While development of expectancies may be dynamic during adolescence, it is unknown whether the rate of change (slope) in substance use expectancies is a risk factor for use onset across multiple substance use domains. The present study tested the hypothesis that the slope of positive and negative alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use expectancies during mid-adolescence (9th-10th grade) would predict use onset of each respective substance during late adolescence (11th-12th grade). Data from 3,396 ethnically diverse high school students were collected across eight waves of assessment and analyzed within a latent growth modeling framework. Results revealed that the slopes of positive substance use expectancies among never-users of each respective substance predicted increased odds of onset (Alcohol: ORB = 7.73, p < .001; Tobacco: ORB = 5.58, p < .001; Marijuana: ORB = 2.49, p = .001). Only the slope of negative marijuana expectancies predicted increased odds of onset (Marijuana: ORB = .44, p = .04). Baseline level of positive and negative substance use outcome expectancies were also generally found to be associated with onset. For three common drugs used by adolescents, change in substance use expectancies during the first two years of high school may be a marker of risk propensity for substance use onset. Change in expectancies may be an important target in substance use prevention, with research indicating that expectancy challenge and life skills interventions being potentially efficacious. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Reciprocal relations between positive alcohol expectancies and peer use on adolescent drinking: An accelerated autoregressive cross-lagged model using the NCANDA sample

Positive alcohol expectancies (PAE) and associating with drinking peers are reliable predictors of adolescent alcohol use. Knowledge of when and for whom these risk factors are most influential could enhance intervention effectiveness. Reciprocal relations between PAE and adolescent and peer alcohol use were examined between the ages of 13 and 18 in a sample (N = 566; 50% female) from the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA), as well as sex differences in these associations. Associating with drinking peers prospectively predicted more frequent alcohol use for both sexes, although peer socialization was evident earlier for girls compared with boys. Higher PAE influenced later drinking in mid-adolescence, from age 14 to 16, for boys only. PAE influenced peer group selection for both sexes, although the influence was evident earlier in boys than girls. The relative impact of environmental risk factors for problematic alcohol use may vary over time and across developmental periods. These results suggest that prevention and treatment efforts for adolescent drinking can be improved by targeting age-appropriate risk factors. Early adolescent interventions may be best served by minimizing involvement with drinking peers and correcting normative beliefs of peer use. Among adolescent girls, early interventions focused on reducing peer influence may be most effective. Prevention and treatment programs aimed at addressing PAE would likely prove more effective for boys in mid- to late adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record

Peer norms and susceptibility mediate the effect of movie alcohol exposure on alcohol initiation in adolescents

Movie alcohol exposure is a known and consistent predictor of adolescent alcohol use initiation and escalation. Nearly 90% of the top U.S. movies contain alcohol content. Social-cognitive theory posits reciprocal links among environmental influences (e.g., movie alcohol exposure), social-cognitive processes (e.g., perceived norms, susceptibility, alcohol outcome expectancies), and behavior (alcohol use), but these links have been tested in only 1 direction. In the current study, we assessed movie alcohol exposure, alcohol cognitions, and alcohol initiation among adolescents (N = 1,023; 52% female, mean age = 13.7 years) in 4 annual survey waves. Cross-lagged panel models tested bidirectional relations between cognitions and movie alcohol exposure. Finally, we tested bidirectional mediation effects in the prospective prediction of alcohol initiation. Movie alcohol exposure prospectively predicted increases in descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and susceptibility but not positive or negative alcohol outcome expectancies. All factors predicted subsequent alcohol initiation. Close friend injunctive and descriptive norms, peer descriptive norms, and susceptibility mediated the effect of earlier movie alcohol exposure on subsequent alcohol initiation. Movie alcohol exposure mediated the effect of earlier close friend descriptive norms on subsequent alcohol initiation. Movie alcohol exposure and social-cognitive processes are interrelated facets that impact alcohol initiation. Permissive cognitions infrequently predicted higher subsequent exposure to movie alcohol. Clinical and preventative implications of this work are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record