Third, our measure of alcohol consumption focused only on frequency of drinking and did not represent the total amounts of alcohol consumed, which would be helpful to understand individuals’ transition to AD. We recognize that there are alternative ways to index alcohol consumption other than frequency of alcohol consumption, and it is possible that results could vary when different alcohol outcomes are studied. As observed from previous studies, alcohol use quantity and frequency may be differentially influenced by alcohol expectancy (Chen, Grube, & Madden, 1994; Heath, Meyer, Jardin, & Martin, 1991; Mooney, Fromme, Kivlahan, & Marlatt, 1987). While we focused on alcohol use frequency in this study, testing our hypotheses using different measures of alcohol consumption would corroborate the change in positive and negative reinforcement identified in the current study.
