Alcohol and drug expectancies as anticipated changes in affect: negative reinforcement is not sedation.
Goldman and Darkes (2004) argued that all three basic alcohol-expectancy factors can be assessed with a brief questionnaire (AEMax), related to the circumplex model of emotion. I argue that negative reinforcement, one of the three basic expectancy factors, is not assessed with the AEMax. Importantly, negative reinforcement is positively related to problem drinking while sedation (the AEMax-factor that comes closest) is not. In a new dataset (from 119 students, collected in 2002), I demonstrate that sedation is related to negative expectancies and not to negative reinforcement. Different ways to assess all major expectancy factors are proposed.
Wiers
Reinout W
RW
Experimental Psychology, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. R.Wiers@psychology.unimaas.nl
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology