Alcohol Expectancies: Mediators of Biopsychosocial Risk in Early Adolescence?

描述（由申请人提供）：青少年遭受酒精使用的许多急性不良后果。最近的流行病学调查结果表明，青春期与酒精滥用和依赖的发展有关。这种共同发生表明，青少年发展的过程可能会鼓励酒精参与的发展。这个项目在进入青春期期间调查这种可能性，因为：1）这个年龄段可能是一个发展的“热区”，在这个区域，一些生物，心理和环境对饮酒的影响会聚在一起; 2）我们相信我们经常评估酒精使用的计划将打开一扇新的“窗户”在不产生成本和可行性问题的情况下，更早地开始和更快地进行调查;而且，最重要的是，3）我们以前对酒精预期的研究指导我们将这一时期作为理解饮酒开始的中心。在对饮酒前儿童预期的研究中，我们观察到随着向青春期的过渡，认知发生了转变：在青春期之前，儿童主要将负面结果与饮酒联系在一起，但到了青春期早期，饮酒主要与积极和唤起结果相关。我们的目的是确定这种转变的来源，作为探索饮酒对发展的关键影响的一种手段。使用加速纵向/兄弟姐妹设计，我们将招募245个家庭，每个家庭有一个8.5岁的孩子和一个年龄在指数参与者三年内的同性哥哥姐姐。父母双方和两个孩子将每年评估三次，为期4-5年，跨越7个发展年。我们的目标是使用生长模型：1）测量选定的生物心理社会发展变化的参与者进入青春期; 2）确定这些变化最好的预测变化的期望从主要是消极的主要是积极的; 3）确定这些变化最好的预测饮酒的发展;（4）检验青少年过渡期的哪些参数通过期望变化的中介作用影响饮酒的发展。这些途径的识别应该澄清哪些发育过程不仅与饮酒相关，而且实际上有助于通过预期机制参与饮酒。对这些因果通路的进一步了解将引导我们找到最重要的干预目标，并可能提出新的机制，这些机制可能被修改以延迟/预防饮酒发作。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adolescents suffer many acute adverse consequences from alcohol use. Recent epidemiological findings have linked adolescence to the development of alcohol abuse and dependence. This co-occurrence suggests that the processes of adolescent development may encourage the development of alcohol involvement. This project investigates this possibility during entry into adolescence because: 1) this age range may be a developmental "hot zone," in which a number of biological, psychological, and environmental influences on drinking converge; 2) we believe our plan to frequently assess alcohol use will open a new "window" on drinking development without incurring cost and feasibility issues associated with an earlier start and lengthier investigation; and, most importantly, 3) our previous research on alcohol expectancies directs us to this period as central to understanding drinking onset. In studies of expectancies in children before drinking begins, we observed a cognitive shift with the transition to adolescence: before adolescence, children primarily associated negative outcomes with drinking, but by early adolescence, drinking was primarily associated with positive and arousing outcomes. Our intent is to identify the source of this shift as a means of probing key developmental influences on drinking. Using an accelerated longitudinal/sibling design, we will recruit 245 families, each with a child 8.5 years of age and a same-gender older sibling whose age is within three years of the index participant. Both parents and both children will be assessed three times per year for 4-5 years, to span 7 developmental years. Our aims are to use growth modeling to: 1) measure selected biopsychosocial developmental changes as participants move into adolescence; 2) determine which of these changes best predicts the change in expectancies from primarily negative to primarily positive; 3) determine which of these changes best predicts the development of drinking; and 4) test which parameters of the adolescent transition influence the development of drinking via mediation by expectancy change. Identification of such pathways should clarify which developmental processes are not just correlated with drinking, but actually contribute to drinking involvement through the expectancy mechanism. Increased understanding of these causal pathways will direct us to the most important targets for intervention, and may suggest new mechanisms that may be modified to delay/prevent drinking onset.