Department of Educational Psychology

 

Date of this Version

3-2004

Comments

A poster session based on this study was presented to the 25Ih Annual Scientific Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism, June 30, 2002, San Francisco, California, and appeared as an abstract in the meeting proceedings: Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 26 (5, Suppl.), Abstract No. 426.

Abstract

Objective: There is little systematic information on the patterns of Chinese adolescents' alcohol expectancies and the influence of expectancies on drinking behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine Chinese high school students' alcohol expectancies and gender and drinking status (non-drinker, occasional drinker, regular drinker) differences in expectancies.

Method: We administered the Chinese Adolescent Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (CAEQ) to a convenience sample of 1244 high school students (M = 627; F = 617) from schools in Huhhot City, Chayouhou Qi, and Tongliao City in Inner Mongolia, China.
Results: We identified eight expectancy factors: three negative (general negative consequences, harm to person/reputation, and negative uses of alcohol) and five positive (general positive perceptions, tension reduction/relaxation, drinking as social courtesy, social facilitation, and beneficial drinking/moderation). MANOVA results indicated that males had higher positive perception expectancies than females. Regular drinkers had lower negative consequences and higher positive perception expectancies than nondrinkers or occasional drinkers. Non-drinkers had higher harm to person/reputation expectancies than occasional or regular drinkers. Occasional drinkers had higher beneficial/moderation and lower harm to person/reputation expectancies than nondrinkers.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that Chinese adolescents have some expectancies that are similar to those of U.S. adolescents and some expectancies that show cultural specificity. Expectancies are associated with Chinese adolescents' drinking in ways similar to those found for U.S. adolescents.

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