Alcohol expectancies (EXPECT) were measured through questionnaire items from the Adolescent Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (AEQ-A) which has a Cronbach α and retest reliabilities of about .7, as well as good validities when compared to other scales (Brown et al., 1987; Goldman, 2002). In light of limited time available in the ALSPAC protocol, three items with the highest factor loadings in the four AEQ-A scales of interest were selected to be representative of the AEQ. These true/false items were scored on a 0 to 3 scale based on the number of “true” (“I think that effect occurs”) answers recorded for the three items for each of the four scales of expected Changes in Social Behavior, Improved Cognitive and Motor Abilities, Sexual Enhancement, and Arousal. The scales were used as four indicators to create a latent alcohol expectancy variable in the SEM.
