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Another Round for the Brewers: Television Ads and Children's Alcohol Expectancies 1
Author(s) -
Lipsitz Angela,
Brake Greg,
Vincent Eric John,
Winters Mark
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1993.tb01097.x
Subject(s) - expectancy theory , psychology , alcohol , social psychology , developmental psychology , affect (linguistics) , cognition , communication , chemistry , biochemistry , neuroscience
In an experimental study of how beer commercials affect alcohol expectancies, 92 fifth graders watched 40 television ads that included either five beer commercials, five soft‐drink commercials, or five beer commercials plus two antidrinking messages. Afterwards, as an unrelated task, they completed the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire‐Adolescent Form (AEQ‐A; Christiansen, Goldman, & Inn, 1982). Exposure to different commercials produced no differences in drinking expectancies. The experiment was repeated on 74 eighth graders with similar null results; however, eighth‐grade girls more strongly believed (p <.02) that alcohol leads to deteriorated cognitive and behavioral function. In a comparison of fifth and eighth graders from the same school, eighth graders had significantly more positive scores on three AEQ‐A scales that tapped social/emotional expectancies. The failure of beer commercials to create positive alcohol expectancies is consistent with limited and null findings of previous investigations. Research to date does not support a ban on alcohol advertising.