The differential role of alcohol expectancies and drinking refusal self-efficacy in problem and nonproblem drinkers.

OBJECTIVE

The present study aimed to examine the discriminatory ability of alcohol expectancies and drinking refusal self-efficacy and to identify the differential role of these constructs in social and problem drinkers.

METHOD

Drinkers (N = 276) were self-selected from general (n = 185) and clinical (n = 91) populations to complete a 40-minute questionnaire that asked about alcohol expectancies, drinking refusal self-efficacy, consumption, degree of dependence and demographics.

RESULTS

The results showed that in social drinkers both the expectancy and self-efficacy constructs were reliably able to discriminate between types of drinker. Expectancy was related to consumption in social drinkers, but did not appear to account for a significant proportion of the variance in problem drinkers.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings are discussed in terms of a two-process model of drinking behavior that suggests that expectancies operate differently in social and problem drinkers.