In light of the sex differences in correlations in Table 3 regarding the relationship of LR to potential mediators of outcomes, chi square was also used to directly evaluate potential differences across the path coefficients for LR to EXPECT and LR to COPE within the invariance analyses. Here, the path between LR and alcohol expectancies was significantly higher for females (χ2 [1] = 4.30, p <0.04), with a trend for higher path values for the link between expectancies and coping (χ2 difference [1] = 3.26, p=0.08). However, the sexes were not significantly different within the model for the LR to COPE path (χ2 difference [1] = 1.39, p=0.24).
