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Objective: Recent studies suggest that pre-existing aggressive personality traits moderate the relationship between alcohol use and intimate partner violence. The current study extends this literature by examining the relationship between behavioral undercontrol, patterns of alcohol use and relationship aggression in the context of a large, high-risk sample., Method: Participants were drawn from a cohort of 489 young adults taking part in an 11-year longitudinal study. Participants completed self-report measures of behavioral undercontrol, alcohol use and relationship aggression at Years 7 and 11 of the study when most were 25 and 29 years old, respectively., Results: Results revealed that a composite measure of behavioral undercontrol predicted relationship aggression cross-sectionally. Although the composite behavioral undercontrol measure did not interact with alcohol use to predict relationship aggression, one of the measures that comprised the composite (the Agreeableness scale from the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness to Experience Five Factor Inventory) did. Longitudinal analyses revealed that behavioral undercontrol measured at Year 7 did not predict relationship aggression measured at Year 11., Conclusions: Results suggest that behavioral undercontrol is related to relationship aggression outside the laboratory. Individuals with low levels of agreeableness also appear to be at heightened risk for intoxicated aggression. Potential explanations for these findings are discussed.

Objective: The factor structure of alcohol dependence was investigated using exploratory factor analysis, specifically contrasting models of alcohol dependence based on lifetime symptom endorsement to models based on current (i.e., past-year) symptom endorsement., Method: Data from the 1989 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were analyzed. DSM-IV alcohol dependence was assessed in this large community sample of current drinkers and lifetime drinkers, representative of both men and women, and ranging in age from 24 to 32. Sixteen items assessing the seven criteria of DSM-IV alcohol dependence were employed., Results: A single-factor model accounted for most of the observed relationships. However, evidence of additional dimensions, characterized by tolerance and impaired control symptoms, was also identified., Conclusions: Our findings do not support the historical tendency of distinguishing physiological (as indicated by tolerance or withdrawal symptoms) from nonphysiological dependence. Most importantly, factor solutions derived from items based on past-year symptom endorsement were consistent with those derived from items based on lifetime symptom endorsement in samples of both current drinkers and lifetime drinkers.

Objective: Relations among young adult alcohol use disorders (AUDs), preadulthood variables (gender, family history of alcoholism, childhood stressors, high-school class rank, religious involvement, neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism) and young adult developmental tasks (baccalaureate degree completion, full-time employment, marriage) were evaluated., Method: Participants were 424 first-time college students (228 women) who were 18-20 years old; approximately half had a history of paternal alcoholism. Participants were assessed on five occasions over 7 years (Years 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7)., Results: Structural equation modeling results suggest preadulthood variables were more salient predictors of developmental tasks than AUD diagnoses, with the majority of effects due to apparent selection processes. In addition, marriage protected against later AUD diagnosis at Year 7., Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of prospective multivariate models that specify potential selection, causation, socialization and reciprocal effects in order to fully examine complex relations among variables, including alcohol involvement, during major life-transition periods.

Objective: This study investigated the relationship between stress (defined alternatively as negative life events and emotional distress) and heavy drinking across late adolescence and early young adulthood, as well as the roles of tension-reduction drinking motives and gender as moderators of that relationship. The role of personality variables (neuroticism, behavioral undercontrol and extraversion) as moderators also was explored., Method: The data were obtained from 485 individuals (255 women) participating in a five-wave longitudinal study that spanned 7 years. The effects on heavy drinking of stress (either negative life events or emotional distress), tension-reduction drinking motives, gender and personality were analyzed each year with hierarchical multiple regression., Results: Stress (negative life events) was positively related to heavy drinking, but only for men with stronger tension-reduction drinking motives at Year 4 (age 21). The relationship between tension-reduction drinking motives and heavy drinking was positive, developmentally graded, and moderated by gender, after the freshman year, the role of tension-reduction drinking motives in heavy drinking became less important for women, relative to men, a trend that grew stronger after the college years. Behavioral undercontrol played a limited role in the relationship of gender and tension-reduction drinking motives to heavy drinking., Conclusions: The findings have implications for theories of stress-related and stress-motivated drinking. Such theories should consider developmental processes, particularly the transition to adult drinking status at age 21 and the roles of tension-reduction drinking motives, gender and behavioral undercontrol.

Objective: Recent research has highlighted the magnitude of alcohol use and alcohol-related problems on college campuses. However, the effects of alcohol use and abuse during the college years on early adult role attainment are not well characterized. Accordingly, this study was designed to prospectively examine relations between alcohol involvement during the college years and early adult educational and occupational attainment., Method: Participants (N = 429: 231 women) at low and high risk for the development of alcoholism were recruited at a large midwestern university for a study of alcohol and health during the college years. Alcohol involvement was assessed by self-report and structured clinical interviews conducted annually for 4 years. Educational and occupational attainment were assessed by self-report 6 years postmatriculation., Results: Alcohol involvement demonstrated a modest prospective effect on educational attainment, with a reduced effect observed when analyses controlled for academic aptitude and high school academic achievement. Prior academic achievement moderated the relation between alcohol involvement and educational attainment, such that individuals who were higher on secondary school class ranking were more negatively affected by pathologic alcohol involvement than those with lower levels of prior academic achievement. Less consistent evidence was found for prospective relations between alcohol involvement and early adult occupational attainment., Conclusions: These findings indicate a modest role for alcohol involvement in negative educational outcomes, with a more pronounced negative effect of alcohol involvement on educational attainment among those who were high academic performers in high school.

Objective: This study examined relations between childhood stressors (e.g., disrupted family rituals, embarrassment, neglect, abuse), family history of paternal alcoholism, and alcohol use disorders in late adolescence and early adulthood. Of particular interest was the extent to which stressor exposure mediated the association between paternal and offspring alcohol use disorders., Method: A mixed-gender sample of 457 (238 female) participants, approximately half (N = 234) with a family history of paternal alcoholism, were assessed for alcohol use disorders and childhood stressors via clinical interviews., Results: Family history of paternal alcoholism was associated with every childhood stressor examined, often strongly. In addition, a number of childhood stressors (e.g., verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuse) were related to an alcohol use disorder in late adolescence/early adulthood. However, only a portion of the effect of family history on a subsequent alcohol use disorder was accounted for by the childhood stressors we examined., Conclusions: Findings indicate that self-reported childhood stressors are strongly related to a family history of alcoholism, but are only moderately and inconsistently related to the development of an alcohol use disorder. Moreover, they appear to, at best, only partially mediate the relation between family history of alcoholism and an alcohol use disorder.

Objective: The present article examines the relation of problematic alcohol use to collegiate academic problems based on a systematic assessment of problematic alcohol use and college transcript data. The degree to which this prospective association can be explained by reference to third variables is also explored. These third variables include: students' high school academic achievement and aptitude, concurrent drug use, participation in deviant behaviors and students' investment or participation in the college experience., Method: A sample of 444 (240 female) college freshman recruited for a longitudinal study of alcohol use was followed for 6 years. Alcohol and drug involvement, general deviance, academic investment, campus involvement and several background variables were assessed during the freshman year. Additional measures of high school aptitude and achievement as well as collegiate performance were calculated based on college transcript data from all institutions attended., Results: A latent variable structural equation model revealed that problematic alcohol use during the freshman year correlated +.32 with collegiate academic problems. No evidence was found for a unique association between the two constructs when additional constructs were included in the model. Specifically, the association was substantially reduced when preexisting student differences traditionally associated with academic failure in college were taken into account. The inclusion of concurrent drug use and deviance also resulted in a significant reduction in the magnitude of the association., Conclusions: Although a substantial bivariate association exists between problematic alcohol use and academic problems during college, much of this association appears attributable to preexisting student differences on admission to college.

Objective: Numerous studies have demonstrated that alcohol outcome expectancies are strong correlates of various aspects of alcohol use. However, it has been suggested that forced-choice alcohol expectancy items may not measure the most salient anticipated effects of alcohol for an individual, and thus may create superficial responses. Additionally, research on attitude-behavior consistency has demonstrated that the nature of how an attitude is elicited can lead to attitudes that are more or less cognitive. The present study examined the applicability of this aspect of attitude theory to the study of alcohol outcome expectancies and the utility of self-generated outcome expectancies and subjective evaluations in predicting alcohol use and problems., Method: In an extension of methodology previously used in attitude research, alcohol-using college students (N = 165, 87 female) generated alcohol expectancies in response to two sentence stems designed to elicit "affectively" and "cognitively" based alcohol expectancies and made subjective evaluations (SE) ratings of each item generated on dimensions of positivity, likelihood and immediacy., Results: While no support was found for the generalizability of a particular aspect of attitude theory, several interesting findings emerged. SE ratings were significantly related to measures of alcohol use and problems and, for alcohol use measures, predicted comparably to a standardized measure of expectancies. For alcohol dependence symptoms, the number of expectancies generated predicted significant unique variance over that accounted for by subjective evaluations., Conclusions: These results indicate that the sheer number of alcohol expectancies accessible to an individual may be an important correlate of alcohol dependence, independent of subjective evaluations.

Objective: Despite widespread use of the term codependency, empirical evidence regarding its construct validity is generally lacking. This study analyzed the construct validity of codependency as measured by Potter-Efron and Potter-Efron's Codependency Assessment Questionnaire (CAQ). It attempted to determine the CAQ's factor structure and whether there are any unique relations between symptoms of codependency and parental alcoholism after controlling for basic dimensions of personality and psychopathology., Method: Participants were 467 (246 male, 221 female) young adult children of alcoholics and controls who contributed complete questionnaire data at the fourth wave of a longitudinal study of factors related to alcohol use and abuse., Results: The CAQ showed reliability and basically a one dimensional structure, and CAQ scores were significantly related to family history. Although much of this relation between family history and codependency was accounted for by neuroticism and symptoms of general psychopathology, a small, but significant, association between family history and codependency remained even after statistically controlling for personality and psychopathology., Conclusions: We conclude that, although there may be unique aspects of the purported codependency syndrome that are related to a family history of alcoholism, most of the relation between codependency and family history appears to be "explained" by general negative affectivity.

This study examines NEO-FFI correlates of risk for alcoholism, alcohol use disorders and alcoholism subtyping dimensions in a mixed-gender sample of 468 young adults (mean age = 21.3) presumed to be at high risk (n = 239) or low risk (n = 229) for alcoholism on the basis of a family history of paternal alcoholism. The NEO-FFI is a brief personality inventory measuring each of the key dimensions of the five-factor model of personality (FFMP), a comprehensive, empirically-derived model of personality structure. Familial risk for alcoholism was positively associated with openness and negatively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness. Alcohol use disorders were positively associated with neuroticism and negatively associated with aggreeableness and conscientiousness. With the exceptions of alcoholism subtyped by comorbid antisocial personality disorder and by familial alcoholism, all of the alcoholic subtypes examined were related to at least one of the five dimensions. We conclude that the FFMP holds promise for studying personality traits in alcohol use disorders and in bringing a unifying perspective to research and clinical work in this area.

Recently there has been great interest in possible mediators and moderators of family history risk for alcoholism. However, previous studies have failed to employ appropriate designs and data analytic strategies to identify moderators and mediators. This article uses a large data set to illustrate such analyses. In the current data, both presumed personality risk and dispositional self-awareness were found to play moderator (rather than mediator) roles. The conceptual, methodological and data analytic implications of the mediator-moderator distinction are discussed.

Although the establishment of programs for children of alcoholics (COAs) is laudable for those who are in distress, the effects of identifying and labeling COAs have largely been unknown. These studies investigated the possibility of negative stereotypes toward COAs emanating from peers and from the mental health community. In Study 1, 570 high school students were asked to rate six separate roles (typical teenagers--male and female; teenagers with an alcoholic parent--male and female; and mentally ill teenagers--male and female) using 11 bipolar adjective pairs. Subjects rated "COAs" as significantly different overall from both "typical teenagers" and "mentally ill teenagers." When individual nonsignificant differences occurred, COAs were more often grouped with mentally ill teenagers. These correlational findings were extended in an experimental study (Study 2) using mental health workers (N = 80). Subjects watched videotapes of an adolescent who was described as having either a positive or negative family history of alcoholism and as having either a high degree of social success (school leader) or social problems (behavior problems). The adolescent targets labeled COA were judged as more pathological than those labeled non-COA in terms of current and predicted psychological health and psychopathology. These judgments held regardless of the teenagers' labeled current behavior. Both studies demonstrated robust negative stereotypes about COAs both from the COAs' peers and from those responsible for treating COAs. The potentially harmful consequences of labeling COAs--especially those who are currently well-adjusted--are discussed.

Contemporary theorists view many alcohol effects as complex functions of a number of interacting variables ranging from pharmacological factors (e.g., limb of the blood alcohol curve), environmental factors (e.g., setting) and dispositional factors (e.g., individually held expectations concerning the effects of alcohol). To examine this general model, the joint effects on subjective state of beverage (alcohol vs placebo), of setting (alone vs group) and of individual differences in alcohol expectancies were examined in a sample of 98 men social drinkers. Assessment of subjective state included measures of both mood and perceived physical sensations. The results demonstrated the complex determinants of subjective effects of alcohol and illustrated the difficulty of making strong generalizations concerning the subjective effects of alcohol. Alcohol consumption, alcohol expectancies and setting appear to have both independent and interacting effects on subjective state. These effects appear to vary in importance across the types of effects considered and the time since drinking.

The present study investigated whether the degree of alcohol dependence, as operationalized by Skinner and Allen's Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS), covaried with concurrent and predictive criteria in a sample of hospitalized alcoholics. As previously reported, the ADS was found to be unidimensional and internally consistent. However, compared to Skinner and Allen's findings, these inpatients had significantly lower ADS scores. Correlations with concurrent measures of cognitive functioning, psychiatric and physical symptoms tended to be smaller than, but in the same direction as, those previously reported using an outpatient sample. ADS scores did not significantly predict attrition from inpatient treatment, self-reported alcohol consumption over 9-month follow-up or duration of aftercare involvement. Patients who relapsed reported significantly higher ADS scores at admission, however, the magnitude of this relationship was modest (r = .16). In its present form, the ADS appears to have fair concurrent validity, but limited predictive utility within a sample of inpatient alcoholics.