Alcohol expectancies and motives in a substance abusing male treatment sample.

Although prior research has demonstrated the utility of both alcohol expectancies and drinking motives in the prediction of alcohol use and problems, the specific relationship between these domains has not been examined in a clinical sample. One-hundred, forty-seven veterans on an inpatient substance abuse unit completed questionnaires measuring alcohol expectancies and alcohol motives and provided information on their alcohol consumption and related problems. Covariance structure modeling was used to test four theoretically competing models. Findings indicated that: (1) motives mediate the effects of expectancies on use and problems and expectancies do not exert an independent influence on consumption and alcohol problems and (2) contrary to past findings, alcohol use only partially mediates the relationship between enhancement motives and alcohol problems.

Sociopathy, gender, and treatment outcome among outpatient substance abusers.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) may predict poor prognosis but gender/sociopathy relationships to prognosis remain unclear. This study investigated the effects of ASPD upon psychiatric and substance-related outcomes among 235 addiction treatment center outpatients. Prevalence rates for ASPD were similar for males (16%) and females (22%). At baseline, women and ASPD patients displayed greater substance-related and psychiatric severity. At 6-month follow-up, ASPD patients had greater severity on both measures than did patients without ASPD, but women now had equivalent psychiatric severity to men. After controlling for initial severity, ASPD was related to worse substance-related outcomes, but not to worse psychiatric outcomes.

Validation of cocaine and marijuana effect expectancies in a treatment setting.

This study sought to establish the validity of the Cocaine Effect Expectancy Questionnaire (CEEQ), and the Marijuana Effect Expectancy Questionnaire (MEEQ) in discriminating between patterns of drug use in a clinical population. Prior research with these questionnaires has involved primarily nonclinical samples. Expectancy literature has yielded ambiguous results in demonstrating the role of both positive and negative expectancies in regards to drug use patterns. The sample consisted of 149 males on an inpatient V.A. substance abuse unit. On the CEEQ, cocaine users, particularly frequent users, endorsed fewer global positive cocaine expectancies than infrequent or nonusers. Present-infrequent users endorsed greater arousal effects than either present-frequent or nonusers. Nonusers of cocaine endorsed greater relaxation than present users. On the MEEQ, nonusers expected more negative effects from marijuana than users. Present users expected greater relaxation and craving effects than past users or nonusers. These results indicate different roles for positive and negative expectancies in cocaine and marijuana use.

The utility of novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and expectancy in the prediction of drinking.

To test the hypothesis that two temperament scales (Novelty Seeking and Harm Avoidance) are differentially related to alcohol expectancies and drinking patterns, 140 adolescents from an inpatient psychiatric facility completed several self-report questionnaires measuring temperament, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol consumption. Moderated multiple regression analyses indicated that Novelty Seeking was significantly related to frequency of drinking and problem drinking, but that Harm Avoidance was not related to these variables. Results of the MANOVA indicated that high novelty seeking and low harm avoidant (Type 2) individuals had a significantly higher frequency of drinking than did individuals who were high on Harm Avoidance and low on Novelty Seeking (Type 1). Results also showed that expectancy and Novelty Seeking contributed significant independent and overlapping variance in the prediction of amount of drinking. Although Novelty Seeking was related to expectations of social functioning, other hypothesized relationships between temperament and expectancy were not supported.