Gender-role development during youth provides a unique, and currently untapped, opportunity to shape adolescents’ cognitions about what constitutes “typical” drinking behaviors for “typical” men and women. Interventions targeting teens could benefit from challenging media fostered stereotypes about masculinity and drinking. Similar to the positive impact non-using social supports have on abstinence rates of adolescent drinkers (Brown et al., 1990), the identification of positive non- or moderately-using adult male role models in the lives of young boys could counter conventional beliefs, while girls could strengthen their autonomy and reinforce decisions against drinking as a personal choice. Both individual role models and more formal alcohol interventions could therefore utilize expectancy challenging to help teens identify their expectations about drinking and abstinence, understand the factors that influence those beliefs, and provide ways in which to challenge the validity of drinking perceptions. Teens who view their drinking decisions as based on individual ideals, values, and competencies are less likely to succumb to drinking pressure presented by either immediate peers or distal concepts of gender-specific traits.
