Increased Awareness and Self-Challenge of Alcohol Expectancies

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Abstract
Alcohol expectancies have been reported to influence both decisions to drink and the behavioral effects of alcohol and may play a role in both the prevention and the treatment of problem drinking. Prior studies have indicated that alcohol expectancies may be changed by challenging the expectancy with opposing information. This study investigated the effect of increasing awareness of alcohol expectancies, providing relevant information, and the additional impact of an intervention which encouraged self-challenging of the expectancies. Subjects were 90 college students classified as heavy, moderate, and light drinkers and were assigned to one of three conditions: (a) Expectancy Challenge (EC), (b) Expectancy Challenge with Self-Challenge or Inoculation (ECI), and (c) No-Treatment Control group. All groups participated in two intervention sessions. The ECI subjects significantly decreased their drinking over time. When examining reported drinking, the three different groups were not found to change significantly at a different rate. However, there was a significant trend, with the ECI subjects reducing their drinking the most, followed by the EC subjects, and next the Control subjects, who actually increased their drinking.