Attitudes about alcohol: a general review.

This paper reviews 266 articles relating to attitudes towards alcohol use and misuse. It is concluded that adults typically regard themselves as moderate drinkers and disapprove of excessive drinking by others, expressed attitudes vary in accordance with respondent characteristics, drinker characteristics, beverage and amount, setting and time, the term 'alcoholism' has pejorative connotations, but there is no public consensus about etiology or treatment, and alcohol-related attitudes are generally poor predictors of behaviour (but need not be so). It is suggested that a pool of items relating to topic areas of continuing interest be created in order to increase comparability between surveys and further research using more complex attitudinal models be undertaken.