Accessibility of alcohol expectancies from memory: impact of mood and motives in college student drinkers.
OBJECTIVE
It has been hypothesized that alcohol outcome expectancies (AOEs) exist within an associative memory network and that their accessibility is facilitated in the presence of alcohol-related cues. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the accessibility of specific AOEs varies as a function of mood state and gender and to determine whether this relationship is moderated by affect-related drinking motives.


METHODS
Undergraduate students (N = 302) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (i.e., positive, negative and neutral mood). Mood states were achieved using musical mood-induction procedures. Postmood-induction AOEs, obtained using self-generation, were classified into five expectancy categories: social/ situational enhancement (SSE), positive emotional functioning (PEF), relaxation/tension reduction (RTR), physical/pharmacological effects (PPE) and miscellaneous (MISC).


RESULTS
Logistic regression analyses revealed that SSE and RTR expectancies were differentially accessible across mood conditions. SSE expectancies were most highly accessible to participants in a positive mood, and RTR expectancies were most highly accessible to participants in a relatively neutral mood. Although drinking motives did not moderate the AOE-mood relationship, they emerged as significant predictors of SSE and RTR expectancies. The accessibility of specific AOEs differed among men and women.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that mood serves as an implicit prime for the accessibility of specific AOEs. The implications of these findings for research concerning memory-based, cognitive-affective expectancy networks are discussed.
Department of Psychology, York University, Room 297, Behavioral Sciences Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3. agoldste@yorku.ca
Abby L
AL
Goldstein
Anne-Marie
AM
Wall
Sherry A
SA
McKee
Riley E
RE
Hinson
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009042:Motivation; D016017:Odds Ratio; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014495:Universities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data