Alcohol Expectancies and Alcohol Use Frequency: Does Drinking Context Matter?

Although alcohol use varies across settings, current measures of alcohol outcome expectancies (i.e., perceived likelihood of experiencing a drinking outcome; AOE) and valuations (i.e., desirability of specific drinking outcomes) do not specify the drinking context explicitly. Therefore, the contextual factors (which may affect both AOE and valuations) respondents use when completing these measures are unknown and make interpretation of measures potentially challenging. As such, the present study examined AOE and valuations among 334 college student drinkers (71.0 % women; M age = 21.05; 74 % Hispanic) as a function of three drinking contexts: convivial (e.g., at a party, a bar), negative coping (e.g., when experiencing negative affect), and personal-intimate (e.g., with a romantic partner, on a date). As expected, results indicated that endorsement of AOE and valuations differed by context. Participants generally perceived the effects of alcohol—both positive (e.g., I would be friendly) and negative (e.g., I would be clumsy)—as being less likely to occur and less desirable in the negative coping context than in convivial and personal-intimate contexts. Patterns of AOE and valuations for convivial and personal-intimate context varied by specific drinking outcomes; however, all valuations of negative effects were rated highest in the personal-intimate context. Further, certain context-specific beliefs about the effects of alcohol were differentially associated with reported frequency of alcohol use in each context. Findings suggest that context should be made explicit by researchers and clinicians in assessment and intervention of college student drinking.