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Characterizing Alcohol Expectancies in the ABCD Study: Associations with Sociodemographic Factors, the Immediate Social Environment, and Genetic Propensities

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Abstract

Alcohol expectancies (AEs) are associated with likelihood of alcohol initiation and subsequent alcohol use disorders. It is unclear whether genetic predisposition to alcohol use and/or related traits contributes to shaping how one expects to feel when drinking alcohol. We used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study to examine associations between genetic propensities (i.e., polygenic risk for problematic alcohol use, depression, risk-taking), sociodemographic factors (i.e., parent income), and the immediate social environment (i.e., peer use and disapproval toward alcohol) and positive and negative AEs in alcohol-naïve children (max analytic N = 5,352). Mixed-effect regression models showed that age, parental education, importance of the child’s religious beliefs, adverse childhood experiences, and peer disapproval of alcohol use were associated with positive and/or negative AEs, to varying degrees. Overall, our results suggest several familial and psychosocial predictors of AEs but little evidence of contributions from polygenic liability to problematic alcohol use or related phenotypes.

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Data Availability

Genetic and phenotypic data in the ABCD sample are available for download by approved researchers from the NIMH Data Archive.

Code Availability

Available at https://github.com/emmacj/ABCD_alc_expectancies

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Funding

ECJ was supported by K01DA051759. AA and RB receive support from R01DA054750. ASH was supported by K01AA030083. AJG was supported by DGE-213989. NRK was supported by K23MH12179201. SEP was supported by F31AA029934. National Institute on Drug Abuse, K01DA051759, R01DA054750,R01DA054750, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, F31AA029934, K01AA030083, National Science Foundation, DGE-213989, National Institute of Mental Health, K23MH12179201.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 S. Euclid, CB 8134, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA

    Emma C. Johnson, Alexander S. Hatoum, Sarah M. C. Colbert, Nicole R. Karcher & Arpana Agrawal

  2. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Sarah E. Paul, David A. A. Baranger, Alexander S. Hatoum, Shuyu Lin, Rachel Wolff, Aaron J. Gorelik, Isabella Hansen & Ryan Bogdan

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  1. Emma C. Johnson
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  2. Sarah E. Paul
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  3. David A. A. Baranger
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  4. Alexander S. Hatoum
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Contributions

All authors had input on study design, with ECJ, DAAB, and AA leading study design and conception. ECJ, SEP, SMCC, LL, and RW contributed to data analysis. SEP, ASH, IH, and NK contributed to phenotype curation. AA and RB supervised analyses. ECJ wrote the manuscript draft, and all authors contributed to editing and approved of the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emma C. Johnson.

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Conflict of interest

Emma C Johnson, Sarah E Paul, David AA Baranger, Alexander S Hatoum, Sarah MC Colbert, Shuyu Lin, Rachel Wolff, Aaron J Gorelik, Isabella Hansen, Nicole R Karcher, Ryan Bogdan, Arpana Agrawal have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Approval

This study was approved by the local Institutional Review Board. Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (https://abcdstudy.org), held in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA). This is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children age 9–10 and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. The ABCD Study is supported by the National Institutes of Health and additional federal partners under award numbers U01DA041022, U01DA041028, U01DA041048, U01DA041089, U01DA041106, U01DA041117, U01DA041120, U01DA041134, U01DA041148, U01DA041156, U01DA041174, U24DA041123, U24DA041147, U01DA041093, and U01DA041025. A full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/federal-partners.html. A listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/Consortium_Members.pdf. ABCD consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the NIH or ABCD consortium investigators. The ABCD data repository grows and changes over time. The ABCD data used in this report came from https://doi.org/10.15154/1523041.

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Edited by Chun Chieh Fan.

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Johnson, E.C., Paul, S.E., Baranger, D.A.A. et al. Characterizing Alcohol Expectancies in the ABCD Study: Associations with Sociodemographic Factors, the Immediate Social Environment, and Genetic Propensities. Behav Genet 53, 265–278 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-023-10133-2

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