Gender, Affect, and Expectancies in College Drinking

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管有文献证明大学生在饮酒和后果方面存在性别差异，但性别对一些最显著的大学饮酒相关因素的影响尚未得到充分研究。具体来说，理论和经验数据都支持大学饮酒的病因学概念，包括情感和认知因素，并且文献表明这些因素可能因性别而异。然而，这些关键变量之间关系的本质以及它们可能影响酒精消费的方式仍不清楚。现有的研究得出了不一致的结果，部分原因可能是严重依赖自我报告数据和相关设计来评估这些关联。显然需要在这方面进行受控的实验室研究。新研究者R21的目标是发展和开展必要的实验室研究，以阐明这些关联，并描绘大学饮酒背后的情感和认知过程。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite documented gender differences in alcohol use and consequences among college students, the impact of gender on some of the most salient correlates of college drinking has been understudied. Specifically, both theory and empirical data offer support for an etiological conceptualization of college drinking that includes both affective and cognitive factors, and the literature suggests that these factors may affect drinking differentially by gender. Yet, the nature of relations among these critical variables and the ways that they may influence alcohol consumption remain unclear. Extant studies have yielded dissonant findings, perhaps in part due to the heavy reliance on self-report data and correlational designs to assess these associations. Controlled laboratory studies in this area clearly are needed. The objective of this new investigator R21 is to develop and conduct necessary laboratory studies to explicate these associations and to delineate affective and cognitive processes underlying college drinking. The proposed research program consists of a series of three studies. In the first study, multidimensional scaling (MDS) will be used to model alcohol expectancies across genders and at differing imagined doses of alcohol. In the second study, the effects of experimentally induced mood on the accessibility of alcohol expectancies will be examined in a 2(gender) X 3 (mood) factorial design. In the third study, undergraduates will be randomly assigned to a mood condition. Mood related changes in drinking will be examined in a 2 (gender) X 3 (mood) factorial design. Moderational effects of expectancies and mediational effects of expectancy accessibility on the affect-drinking association will be examined. In accordance with the goals of the Healthy People 2000 Initiative, this research program represents a critical first step toward decreasing heavy drinking among youths. Together, the proposed studies will yield fundamental knowledge about the unique and aggregate associations among gender, affect, expectancies, and alcohol consumption. The program is innovative in its systematic experimental examination of these associations. Findings from these studies have direct and important implications for preventive interventions, as they may facilitate the development of targeted, gender-appropriate interventions to reduce heavy alcohol use and its consequences among college students.