A confirmatory test of hierarchical expectancy structure and predictive power: Discriminant validation of the alcohol expectancy questionnaire

Although a hierarchical structure of alcohol expectancies has been hypothesized, until recently confirmatory methods for testing such a model have been unavailable. Using concurrent data from 446 young adults entering college for the first time, this study applied new hierarchical models for confirmatory factor analysis to the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire. Then, using prospective drinking data from 428 participants, it evaluated the contribution of both common (higher order) and unique (first-order) expectancy variance to the prediction of alcohol use 1 year later. Results supported the hierarchical structure of alcohol expectancies and indicated that associated common and unique variance reliably predicted alcohol use. One uniqueness (social-physical pleasure) outpredicted the common variance. The theoretical (process) implications of these findings are discussed.