Racial/Ethnic Differences in Alcohol Expectancies and Alcohol Use from Childhood through Adolescence

Introduction: Alcohol expectancies, or beliefs about the consequences of drinking, are important determinants of alcohol initiation and maintenance among adolescents. Positive alcohol expectancies (PAE) predict greater alcohol use whereas negative alcohol expectancies (NAE) protect against use. Research has suggested that the development of PAE among children may differ by race/ethnicity. Further, research with young adults has shown that PAE differentially predict drinking outcomes based on race/ethnicity. However, no study has examined racial/ethnic differences in both PAE and NAE, and their effect on alcohol use during emerging adolescence. The current study examines changes in the endorsement of PAE and NAE, and their relationship with alcohol use from childhood to adolescence by racial/ethnic group using time-varying effect models (TVEM).

Methods: Participants were 1,529 (52.8% male) children who completed self-report measures of two positive and two negative domains of alcohol expectancies, and frequency of alcohol use nine times between 5^th and 10^th grade. Participants were non-Hispanic White (69.3%), non-Hispanic African American (17.2%), or Hispanic (7.5%). Intercept-only TVEMs were used to examine changes in alcohol expectancies and Gaussian TVEMs were used to examine changes in the relationship between expectancies and alcohol use over time. Models were stratified by race/ethnicity to examine group differences.

Results: African American youth endorsed higher PAE than White youth in early waves, but these differences converged by 8^th grade. Endorsement of NAE followed similar trajectories across racial/ethnic groups over time. The effect of PAE on drinking was equivalent among White and African American youth in 5^th grade; however, these effects diverged after 6^th grade due to a steeper increase in the effect among Whites. Whereas the relationship between PAE increased linearly among White and African American youth, this relationship fluctuated over time among Hispanic youth. There were no significant group differences in the relationship between NAE and alcohol use. However, significant protective effects of NAE on alcohol use were only found between 6th and 8th grade, and primarily among White youth.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that PAE are more important predictors of alcohol use than NAE throughout emerging adolescence, but the influence of both expectancy domains is strongest among White adolescents. Alcohol expectancies, which are thought to mediate the relationship between social and personality factors, and adolescent alcohol use, may be a less impactful intervention target among American American and Hispanic youth than among White youth.