Even in early childhood offspring alcohol expectancies correspond to parental drinking

doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.10.024

Drug and Alcohol Dependence

Volume 183, 1 February 2018, Pages 51-54

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.10.024 Get rights and content

Highlights

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From age 4 on children are aware of emotional changes when adults drink alcohol.
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These alcohol expectancies may originate from observed parental alcohol use.
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We found low positive and high negative expectancies with high parental drinking.
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This was true across parental gender and alcohol use measures, but only for boys.

Abstract

Background

Research has found that children as young as preschoolers have an idea about the valence (positive vs. negative) and activation (arousal vs. sedation) of emotional change when adults drink alcohol. The development of alcohol expectancies at such a young age may be due to observed parental alcohol use.

Methods

Three measures of alcohol use (frequency, quantity and binge drinking) assessed among 115 fathers and 149 mothers were correlated with four alcohol expectancy factors (crossing valence and activation) of their offspring, aged three to six (70 boys and 82 girls).

Results

For both arousal and sedation expectancies and across alcohol use measures of both fathers and mothers, the greater parental alcohol use was, the higher their sons' negative and the lower positive alcohol expectancies were. For negative expectancies (particularly sedation, i.e., drinking when feeling sad or depressed), there was a stronger and more consistent association with paternal than with maternal drinking. For daughters, there was no consistent association between any expectancy factor and any parental drinking behavior.

Conclusions

Already among preschoolers, parental drinking was found to be correlated with their sons' alcohol expectancies in the sense that they may observe and associate positive emotional consequences (feeling joyful, happy, calm, relaxed etc.) with moderate parental drinking and negative emotional consequences (feeling angry, nervous, sad, depressed etc.) with excessive drinking. This may be important for prevention, as expectancies have been found to be predominant predictors of early alcohol initiation and development of risky drinking in adolescence and beyond.

Introduction

Alcohol expectancies (i.e., the emotional changes people believe are likely to occur when drinking alcohol) were found to be important predictors of early alcohol initiation and the development of risky drinking patterns (Bekman et al., 2011, Jester et al., 2015, Settles et al., 2014, Windle et al., 2008). Alcohol expectancies are formed and were found to exist rather early in life (i.e., even before the child had tried alcohol for the first time) (Mares et al., 2015, Miller et al., 1990). One study (Kuntsche, 2017) demonstrated that even preschoolers have alcohol expectancies and that these very young children already have an idea of the valence (positive vs. negative) and activation (arousal vs. sedation) of the emotional change that occurs when adults drink alcohol. However, why this is the case (i.e., from where these alcohol expectancies originate so early in life) has yet to be investigated.

Among older children and adolescents, research has demonstrated that the more parents drink, the more positive (Brown et al., 1999, Handley and Chassin, 2009, Martino et al., 2006) and the less negative (Mares et al., 2015) the alcohol expectancies of their offspring become. However, the strength of the relationship between parental alcohol use and their offspring's alcohol expectancies tend to depend on the gender of both the child and the parent. Studies have found that paternal alcohol use was more strongly associated with children's expectancies than maternal alcohol use (Handley and Chassin, 2009, Miller et al., 1990, Pieters et al., 2010). This is probably because fathers drink more often and in greater quantities than mothers do. Concerning the gender of the child, the evidence is mixed: among 10–15-year olds in the US a study found an association for father-son dyads but not for father-daughter dyads (Handley and Chassin, 2009); the opposite was found among 6–9-year olds in the Netherlands (Mares et al., 2015).

This study advances previous evidence by investigating whether the link between parental alcohol use and the alcohol expectancies of their offspring exists even earlier in life (i.e., among preschoolers). Moreover, it tests this link separately for: (a) maternal and paternal alcohol use, (b) three different alcohol use measures (frequency, quantity, binge drinking), (c) sons and daughters, and (d) four alcohol expectancy factors.

Section snippets

Sample

Having obtained authorization from the local authorities and the ethical commissions of Lausanne (Protocol 266/2012) and Geneva (Protocol 12–25), the study was conducted in 44 randomly selected preschool classes and nurseries in French-speaking Switzerland. Details about the fieldwork are documented elsewhere (Kuntsche, 2017, Kuntsche et al., 2016). Consistent with previous research (Kuntsche, 2017), alcohol expectancies were only assessed among the 212 children (70.4% of the original sample)

Results

Fathers drank about six times per month on average, and consumed an average of three drinks per occasion; they had one binge drinking occasion in the past month (Table 1). Mothers indicated about half as many drinking and binge drinking occasions; on average they consumed one drink less per drinking occasion than fathers.

With only one exception (fathers' drinking quantity and sedation-positive expectancies), the direction of the correlation between parental alcohol use and their sons' positive

Discussion

While previous studies have shown that in late childhood and early adolescence offspring's alcohol expectancies correspond to parental drinking patterns (Handley and Chassin, 2009, Mares et al., 2015, Miller et al., 1990, Pieters et al., 2010), this study indicates that such a correspondence exists even earlier in life (i.e., among preschoolers). This is important because alcohol expectancies have been found to predict early alcohol initiation and the development of risky drinking patterns (

Conclusions

Already among preschoolers, parental drinking was found to be correlated with their sons' alcohol expectancies in the sense that they may observe and associate positive emotional consequences (feeling joyful, happy, calm, relaxed etc.) with moderate parental drinking and negative emotional consequences (feeling angry, nervous, sad, depressed etc.) with excessive drinking. This may be important for prevention because expectancies were found to be predominant predictors of early alcohol

Contributors

Both authors (EK, SK) contributed to analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, and approved of the manuscript before submission.

Role of funding source

The study was supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF grant 100014_140294/1-3) awarded to Professor E. Kuntsche. The funding source had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Conflict of interest

Both authors do not have any conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Lydie Le Mével, Sophie Baudat, Clémentine Fellay, Mathieu Horisberger, Adrienne Giroud and Julien Suter for conducting the fieldwork, Elaine Sheerin and Megan Cook for the English copy editing, and Edith Bacher for adding the references to this manuscript as she had done in so many of our papers before.

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This is important when considering that positive reinforcement AE (i.e., social and enhancement) are associated with positive reinforcement motives (Kuntsche et al., 2005; Van Tyne et al., 2012), which are predictive of higher alcohol use in adolescence (Cho et al., 2019). In general, findings are mixed with some studies showing differences between fathers and mothers (Kuntsche and Kuntsche, 2018) and other studies indicating similar effects (Handley and Chassin, 2009; Mares et al., 2015; Voogt et al., 2017a, b). One possible explanation may be that fathers have a stronger influence on specific AE since they typically drink more compared to mothers (Holmila and Raitasalo, 2005; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2004) and therefore endorse more positive effects of alcohol (Jayne and Valentine, 2017).
The subjective effects of alcohol, i.e., alcohol expectancies (AE), are important predictors of alcohol use. This three-year longitudinal study examined: 1) the development of enhancement, social, coping, and conformity AE from age 10–16; 2) the association between parental alcohol use exposure and positive AE among adolescents and between exposure and changes in AE over the six month period and 3) the moderating effect of gender on the association between exposure and change in AE.
A longitudinal study followed adolescents between 10-13-years old at baseline (N = 755; 45.6 % boys) in six months intervals for three years, resulting in seven measurements.
Adolescents most strongly endorsed enhancement AE. Social and coping AE dimensions positively increased over time. The estimated Multilevel Model of Change revealed that exposure to either fathers ‘or mothers' alcohol use predicted an increase in social AE six months later (B = .129, SE = .032). Exposure to fathers’ drinking predicted an increase in enhancement AE for boys (B = .075, SE = .031) but not for girls (B=-0.045, SE = .030). No associations between parental exposure and other AE dimensions were found.
The results add to previous studies in showing that the association between parental drinking behavior and offspring AE develops within short periods. Prevention should, therefore, include explicit guidelines for parents with respect to how their drinking behavior affect their offspring.
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Alcohol use expectancies are cognitions pertaining to the anticipated effects of alcohol use and can be either positive (e.g., drinking makes me assertive) or negative (e.g., drinking makes me lose control; (Kuntsche and Kuntsche, 2018).
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The connection between social contextual factors and AE endorsement has been the subject of considerable attention (Chen et al., 2011; Colder et al., 2017; Mares et al., 2015; Martino et al., 2006; Smit et al., 2018; Voogt et al., 2017). For school-aged children, parental drinking has been consistently documented as a strong predictor for positive AEs (Chen et al., 2011; Kuntsche and Kuntsche, 2018; Mares et al., 2015; Voogt et al., 2017). Our longitudinal analyses indicated that paternal and maternal drinking may have differential relationships with the profiles of positive AEs, and the relationship pattern varied by alcohol initiation in childhood.
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Three distinct profiles (decreasing, stable, and increasing) of positive AEs were identified for the alcohol-naïve children (n = 466); observing paternal drinking and watching TV more than two hours per day at baseline were strongly linked with the stable and increasing AE profiles (aOR = 1.96–4.80). For the alcohol-experienced children, four profiles (low decreasing, low increasing, high decreasing, and high increasing) emerged; observing maternal drinking was predictive for the high-increasing profile (aOR = 2.94). Regardless of childhood alcohol initiation, recent alcohol use appeared to be the strongest predictor for the increasing profiles of positive AEs.
Strategies addressing pro-alcohol social contexts that facilitate a prominent increase in positive AEs should be considered when devising preventive programs targeting underage drinking behaviors and problems.
Alcohol expectancy profile in late childhood with alcohol drinking and purchasing behaviors in adolescence
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These observations supported the notion that the transition from late childhood into early adolescence, coinciding with the beginning of formal operational stage, may be the critical phase for the development of alcohol expectancy (Bekman, Goldman, Worley, & Anderson, 2011; Copeland et al., 2014; Miller et al., 1990; Smit et al., 2018). Other than age or developmental stage, an array of individual and social factors have been implicated in the endorsed level of alcohol expectancies in underage population, including gender, pubertal development, parental drinking, and peer drinking (Chen et al., 2011; Kuntsche & Kuntsche, 2018; Ting, Chen, Liu, Lin, & Chen, 2015; Wiers et al., 1997). Specifically, recent longitudinal studies indicated that during the transition from elementary school into middle school, advanced pubertal development and the observation of peer drinking were significantly predictive for higher levels of positive alcohol expectancies, and the effect was especially prominent in the domain of enhancing social behaviors (Ting et al., 2015).
The study aims to (i) identify the evolving profile of endorsed alcohol expectancies (AEs) during the transition from late childhood into early adolescence, and (ii) examine the connection between such profiles and subsequent alcohol drinking and purchasing in adolescence.
A prospective cohort of 928 sixth graders was recruited from 17 elementary schools in northern Taiwan in 2006 with follow-ups conducted in seventh and eighth grade. Information concerning AEs, individual characteristics, and social attributes were collected by self-administered questionnaires at baseline and in seventh grade; drinking behaviors and alcohol purchasing were assessed in eighth grade. Longitudinal latent profile and survey regression analyses were used to evaluate association estimates.
Three distinct profiles of positive AEs were identified: stably low (37%), stably high (35%), and increasing (28%). Regardless of childhood-onset alcohol experience, endorsing the stably high-profile AEs was associated with increased drinking occasions (adjusted relative risk [aRR] = 1.49, 95% CI = 1.24–1.80), and having the increasing-profile AEs may elevate the likelihood of alcohol purchase in adolescence (adjusted odd ratio [aOR] = 2.57, 95% CI = 1.33–4.96). Additionally, parental drinking was the most influential social factor for drinking occasions (aRR = 1.43) whereas peer drinking was prominent for alcohol purchasing (aOR = 3.06).
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Short communicationEven in early childhood offspring alcohol expectancies correspond to parental drinking

Highlights

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Introduction

Section snippets

Sample

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

Contributors

Role of funding source

Conflict of interest

Acknowledgments

Addict. Behav.

Addict. Behav.

Addict. Behav.

Pre-adolescent alcohol expectancies: critical shifts and associated maturational processes

Exp. Clin. Psychopharmacol.

Modeling of alcohol use mediates the effect of family history of alcoholism on adolescent alcohol expectancies

Exp. Clin. Psychopharmacol.

Intergenerational transmission of alcohol expectancies in a high-risk sample

J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs

Gender differences in drinking: why do they still exist?

Addiction

Alcohol expectancies in childhood: change with the onset of drinking and ability to predict adolescent drunkenness and binge drinking

Addiction

Short communication
Even in early childhood offspring alcohol expectancies correspond to parental drinking