The Role of implicit associations and explicit expectancies related to alcohol use: a comparison of Lithuanian and US college samples

ENHealth officials, researchers, and policymakers worldwide are interested in the factors that contribute to harmful consumption of alcohol. A report by the World Health Organization indicated that for alcohol, Lithuania ranked among the top three highest-consuming nations in the world. However, the literature on variables known to predict alcohol use in Lithuanian samples is sparse. Further, none of these studies have compared predictor variables across both Lithuanian and U.S. samples. The purpose of the current study was to 1) explore for cultural differences in explicit alcohol expectancies and implicit alcohol associations among college students from the U.S. and Lithuania; 2) test whether explicit expectancy measures and/or implicit alcohol associations have the ability to predict alcohol outcome measures; and 3) examine the incremental validity of implicit alcohol associations relative to explicit alcohol expectancies in predicting alcohol outcome measures. Eighty one (32 male and 49 female; mean age = 20.35, SD = 2.54) university students from the U.S. and 63 (18 male and 45 female; mean age = 20.85, SD = 2.36) university students from Lithuania participated in this study. It was found that: 1) U.S. students had significantly stronger endorsements of positive alcohol expectancies than Lithuanian students; 2) U.S. students’ had significantly less negative implicit alcohol associations than Lithuanian students; 3) Negative alcohol expectancies significantly predicted frequency of alcohol use among U.S. students and both frequency and quantity of alcohol use among Lithuanian students; 4) Implicit alcohol associations predicted frequency, quantity, and harmful alcohol use; and 5) Implicit alcohol associations significantly explained more variance than that explained by explicit alcohol expectancies alone, but only in predicting harmful use. Implications and conclusions of the findings are discussed.