Alcohol Expectancies: Mediators of Biopsychosocial Risk in Early Adolescence?

描述(申请人提供)：青少年因饮酒而遭受许多严重的不良后果。最近的流行病学发现将青春期与酗酒和依赖的发展联系在一起。这种同时发生的现象表明，青少年的发育过程可能会鼓励酒精参与的发展。这个项目在进入青春期时调查这种可能性，因为：1)这个年龄段可能是一个发育的“热区”，在这个范围内，对饮酒的许多生物、心理和环境影响汇聚在一起；2)我们相信，我们经常评估酒精使用的计划将为饮酒的发展打开一个新的“窗口”，而不会招致与更早开始和更长时间的调查相关的成本和可行性问题；最重要的是，3)我们之前对酒精预期的研究将我们引导到这一时期，作为理解饮酒开始的核心。在对儿童在饮酒前的期望值的研究中，我们观察到随着过渡到青春期，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，但在青春期早期，饮酒主要与积极和唤醒结果有关。我们的目的是找出这种转变的根源，以此作为探索饮酒关键发育影响的一种手段。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兄弟姐妹。父母和孩子都将在4-5年内每年接受三次评估，时间跨度为7个发育年限。我们的目标是使用生长模型来：1)测量参与者进入青春期时选定的生物心理社会发育变化；2)确定这些变化中的哪一个最能预测预期从主要负面到主要积极的变化；3)确定这些变化中的哪一个最能预测饮酒的发展；以及4)测试青少年过渡的哪些参数通过预期变化影响饮酒的发展。对这类途径的识别应该澄清哪些发育过程不仅与饮酒相关，而且实际上通过预期机制促进饮酒。增加对这些因果途径的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，可能会被修改以延迟/防止饮酒开始。

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.