Alcohol expectancy and drinking refusal self-efficacy: A test of specificity theory.

Although alcohol expectancy (expectations about the effects of drinking alcohol on one's behavior and mood) and drinking refusal self-efficacy (one's perceived ability to resist drinking in high-risk situations) have consistently been demonstrated to be useful to our understanding of alcohol use and abuse, the specificity of these constructs to alcohol consumption has not been previously demonstrated. Using 161 first-year psychology students and multiple regression analyses this study indicated that alcohol expectancies and drinking refusal self-efficacy were specifically related to quantity of alcohol consumption, but not to caffeine or nicotine intake. These results provide empirical evidence to confirm the theoretical and practical utility of these two cognitive constructs to alcohol research and serve to strengthen the theoretical foundations of alcohol expectancy theory. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd