Population impact of reducing alcohol positive expectations on risky consumption and heavy episodic drinking among young people

A person’s implicit or explicit beliefs about the consequences of his or her own drinking shape expectations regarding alcohol consumption. Despite referring to the consequences of self-consumption, Miller et al. remind us that a person’s expectations regarding alcohol consumption are created even before actual consumption is initiated (Miller, Smith and Goldman, 1990), probably generated from observation and deeply influenced by cultural norms. Holding positive expectancies about drinking has been related to higher levels of drinking and maintenance of drinking, whereas the opposite effect has been found for negative expectancies (Carey, 1995; Linden, Lau- Barraco, & Milletich, 2014).