Family history of alcoholism as a vulnerability for adolescent alcohol involvement is not limited to genetics. Cognitive social learning theory posits that youth form beliefs and attitudes and model their behavior based on what is observed in the home (Bandura, 1977). It is therefore hypothesized that these cognitive schema regarding the use and effects of alcohol, referred to as alcohol expectancies, represent a learning history shaped largely by parental modeling (Goldman, Brown, Christiansen, & Smith, 1991). Within a broad community sample of youth, positive alcohol expectancies have been associated with habitual drinking patterns (Christiansen, Goldman, & Inn, 1982), with increased positive expectancies related to increased risk for the development of alcohol abuse and dependence (Brown, Creamer, & Stetson, 1987; Christiansen, Goldman, & Brown, 1985). Moreover, COAs not only expect significantly more cognitive and motor enhancement from drinking than family-history-negative adolescents (Brown et al., 1987), but they also possess an attentional bias, or preoccupation, for alcohol-related stimuli (Zetteler, Stollery, Weinstein, & Lingford-Hughes, 2006). Youth therefore formulate “alcohol schema” by attending to and generating beliefs around parental drinking prior to personal use (e.g., Zetteler et al., 2006; Zucker et al., 1995).
