This proposal includes a series of four interrelated studies with male and female heavy social drinkers that have been designed to examine several important mediating """"""""risk factor"""""""" variables which are seen as potentially useful indicators for predicting heightened subjects' susceptibilities to modeling influences in alcohol consumption. Subjects who are rated as high- or low-risk on historically identified risk factor variables (perceived """"""""inadequate"""""""" levels of social support; high """"""""expectancies"""""""" for alcohol to enhance their social behavior; high levels of social anxiety; or those with a parental family history of alcoholism) will participate in an extended ad lib alcohol consumption session in a semi-naturalistic barroom setting, and along with confederate models who will systematically exhibit variations of heavy and light alcohol consumption modeling across four 20-minute sessions. In an initial session, confederates will be randomly assigned to exhibit either heavy or light consumption modeling, then will systematically alter their rates of consumption across each of three remaining sessions. This extended """"""""modeling effects"""""""" design will allow for a detailed assessment of the relative impact of heavy and light consumption modeling influences on subjects' drinking behavior overall, of the impact of increases and decreases in modeling consumption rates across sessions, and for an assessment of the overall extent to which subjects track directional changes in modeled drinking behavior over time. Each experiment is based on a 2 (sex of subject) X 2 (high- or low-risk) X 2 (heavy or light consumption modeling) factorial design. Central analyses will test whether high-risk subjects are more significantly influenced by heavy and light consumption modeling effects than are low- risk drinkers, and a wealth of information will be generated on subjects' responses to the heavy and light consumption modeling. Additional analyses will allow for a determination of whether subjects exhibit heightened susceptibilities to modeling influences in alcohol consumption if they are rated as at-risk on multiple, as opposed to a single, variable. In combination, these experiments will allow for the generation of information on risk factors that may be linked to heavy drinkers' heightened susceptibilities to modeling influences in alcohol consumption. In addition, with examining ad lib drinking in a semi-naturalistic barroom setting, and examining the impact of variations in """"""""modeled drinking behavior"""""""" over time, the current investigation will more closely approximate an """"""""actual life"""""""" drinking context than have a majority of prior studies of this nature. Identifying risk factors that can predict social drinkers' increased susceptibilities to heavy and light consumption modeling could contribute significantly towards generating innovations in prevention programs that may target at-risk individuals, and for improving treatment matching protocols for these at-risk clients.
| Caudill, B D; Kong, F H (2001) Social approval and facilitation in predicting modeling effects in alcohol consumption. J Subst Abuse 13:425-41 |
