Alcohol and outcome expectancies: tolerance for socially nonacceptable behaviors

Alcohol expectancies of women and men in relation to alcohol use and perceptions of the effects of alcohol on the opposite sex

The present study was intended to identify specific alcohol expectancies of women and men that could be targeted in expectancy-based interventions to maximize their impact on alcohol use. The Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (AEQ) was revised to specifically refer to women, men, or the respondent, and was administered to 433 undergraduates with a measure of alcohol use. When asked about expectancies for themselves, females' and males' drinking correlated most highly with expectations of social facilitation. When asked about expectancies for the opposite sex, however, several other types of expectancies were related to respondents' alcohol use in addition to expectations of enhanced social experiences. Males' drinking corresponded to beliefs that women will be happier, more confident, and will sleep better if they have consumed alcohol. Females' drinking corresponded to beliefs that men will be less sexually inhibited and more romantic after drinking. These findings link past expectancy work with more recent attempts to model the mechanism by which expectancies influence alcohol use and may guide development of maximally effective expectancy-based interventions to reduce drinking.

Alcohol and aggression: general population views about causation and responsibility

The purpose of this paper is to explore the public's perceptions about alcohol as a causal agent in aggressive behavior, and to assess how these beliefs are associated with notions of responsibility and the excuse-function of alcohol. In a 1995 probability survey, 994 adults across Ontario (50.3% female; mean age = 41.5, SD = 5.9) were asked questions about: alcohol-aggression expectancies; alcohol as an excuse; responsibility; personal drinking behavior; alcohol-aggression victimization; and demographics. Descriptive and regression analyses were conducted. Over three-quarters of respondents believed that alcohol is associated with aggression, with females, older respondents, those with less education, and those who do not drink heavily more likely to hold this view. A majority (92%) believed that an intoxicated person is responsible for any behavior, with very little subgroup variation. Analyses showed that the perception of alcohol as a causal agent was not associated with decreased personal responsibility attributions. In fact, the stronger the belief in the alcohol-aggression link, the more likely one was to hold the view that an intoxicated person is responsible for behavior. Beliefs that alcohol causes violence do not translate into the acceptance of intoxication as an excuse. Reasons as to why intoxication does not alleviate responsibility for the drunken actor--a result inconsistent with attribution theory--are discussed. The consistency of these results with the "New Temperance" movement in the United States is also discussed.