We also found that romantic relationship status (specifically, dating several people) accounted for, in part, the associations between the deviance proneness pathway variables and subsequent alcohol use. Notably, this effect through romantic relationship status held even after we statistically controlled for the direct effects of parental alcohol problems and conduct problems on alcohol use, as well as the indirect effect of parental alcohol problems→conduct problems→alcohol use. In an earlier report based on the same sample, dating several people was uniquely associated with higher alcohol use and problems compared to being single or being in an exclusive relationship (Salvatore et al., 2014). The current study goes beyond this earlier finding to suggest that this association may be driven, in part, by the fact that individuals on a deviance proneness pathway are also likely to select into romantic relationship experiences associated with increased alcohol use. One implication of this is that it may be important to revisit Zucker and Gomberg's (1986) suggestion to explicitly incorporate salient socioemotional experiences into etiological models of alcohol use and misuse. This is likely to be particularly
