Accuracy Of Adolescent Alcohol Expectancies example essay topic

publish = yes subject = Intro to Adolescent Psychology title = Expectancies as a Predictor of Adolescent Alcohol Use papers = Please put your paper here. Expectancies as a Predictor of Adolescent Alcohol Use INTRODUCTION This paper examines the use of an idea referred to as expectancy as a predictor of teen alcohol use. Expectancies are concepts that a society reinforces which go on to influence a person's behavior. Current clinical and field studies show that alcohol e HISTORY Prior to the early 1960's, virtually no clinical studies were available on the topic of teen drinking, as literature mostly focused on negative social and moral implications of the activity (Maddox and McCall, 1964). Contrary to somewhat popular notion, h n Once research findings established the basic foundations, further questions soon arose on the psychological reasons behind the increase in consumption. Though the answers are still not definitive by any means, a few commonly accepted theories arose.

Tee E PROBLEM DRINKING In the late 1970's and into the 1980's researchers begun to realize that they had not designed their studies to examine this much more destructive phenomenon of problem drinking. Differing definitions of problem drinking exist, but virtually all contempo ra EXPECTANCIES Researchers began a continuing effort piece together a single explanation for problem drinking. Given the vast set of variables involved, this goal proved to be a formidable task. They shifted focus to the emerging theory of expectancies as a method of to the anticipation of a systematic relationship between events or objects in some upcoming situation. The relationship is understood to be of an if-then variety: If a certain event or objec is registered then a certain event is expected to follow Expectation can be inferred to have causal status in that an individual with his / her own actions, may produce a certain consequence upon noting that an if condition is fulfilled.

More simply stated, drinkers learn certain behavior about drinking from their society. When exposed to alcohol, or alcohol-related cues, they accept and act upon these understandings. Aas (1995) believes, "children learn what to expect of alcohol and th A number of surveys can detect expectancies. The one most commonly used for adolescents is the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire- Adolescent Form, (AE-A). Other significant surveys include both the Alcohol Effects Scale (AES), and the Effects of Drinkin Baker (1987) outlines the two basic constructs that psychologists know as the Conditioned Withdrawal Model (CWM), and the Conditioned Appetitive-Motivational Model (CAMM). The CWM can detect problem drinking based on the notion that certain expectancies " However, several problems have developed in the process of using these constructs as predictive models both in clinical studies and in individual cases.

A person develops expectancies in childhood and early adolescence, but they may not influence actual o CURRENT RESEARCH Current research on expectancies is focusing on combining personal and social statistics with current knowledge on the topic as a better indicator. For both expectancy models, high-risk youngsters clearly hold higher than average expectancies (Christians DISCUSSION Though the literature and research to date have been very effective at showing the accuracy of adolescent alcohol expectancies, I feel it is quite inadequate as to its practical use in the classroom. A few authors make vague and general references to pra If schools administered expectancy surveys over the span of an adolescent's academic career, then a much clearer picture of potential problem drinking would develop. Tracking over a long period would overcome the methodological problems encountered in so A number of problems could also arise if schools were to adopt this theory.

For example, surveys or constructs provide no definite answers. If the educational system relies to heavily on this theory alone, it dooms the idea to be no better than tradition The final complication of long term tracking would not be so simple to solve; few in the educational profession are likely to lack training in expectancy theory. It would be a costly effort to attempt to train counseling staffs to understand and interpret FURTHER STUDY Further study must begin to explore specifically the practical applications of expectancies in the educational system such as I discuss. Prior research studies have certainly laid the groundwork to show that expectancies can provide a reasonably accurate CONCLUSIONS No research has been conducted on the practical applications of what we know about alcohol expectancies. This observation neither nor denies my thesis, but instead merits further investigation. On the basis of on the accumulated knowledge of 30 years o.