The proposed research explores the emergence and evolution of alcohol beliefs (expectancies about alcohol's effects and about the reactions of others to drinking) in early adolescence. The study will address issues that have been raised in the alcohol cognition literature from a developmental/ecological perspective that views alcohol cognitions and behavior as embedded for each individual within the contexts of race/ethnicity, family, peer group, and organism. The research will yield both cross-sectional and longitudinal findings to address the following four aims: to describe, in a large sample of sixth and eighth graders, the content (e.g., positive versus negative) and complexity (e.g., effects of drinking on behavior versus effects of drinking behavior on peer status) of alcohol expectancies; to clarify the relation between young adolescents' alcohol expectancies and their initial/early episodes of drinking outside the family context; to elucidate the impact of race and ethnic background on adolescents' alcohol cognitions and drinking practices as they develop; and to examine how discrete ecological systems (race and ethnicity, family, peer group, and organism) are uniquely related to specific alcohol and reaction expectancies and to specific drinking behaviors.The viability of the ecological model for considering the interacting influences of race/ethnicity, family, peer group, and organism on the alcohol expectancies and drinking behaviors of young adolescents will also be explored. The study findings will clarify the process through which different expectancies develop and are restructured during early adolescence, embedded within contexts of race and ethnicity, family, peer group, and organism. This knowledge is essential to the development of prevention and intervention programs which more effectively address the adolescent's unique perspective on alcohol issues.
