Positive and negative associations with alcohol and familial risk for alcoholism

Considerable evidence indicates that cognitions regarding favorable drinking consequences figure prominently in the development of problem drinking. Because children of alcoholics (COAs) are at particularly high risk for developing drinking problems, the authors hypothesized that they would have higher levels of such cognitions than children of nonalcoholics (CONAs). The authors administered a free-recall task consisting of alcohol, positive, negative, and neutral words to 100 college students and predicted that COAs (n = 18) would have higher levels of positive associations (measured by contiguous recall) and lower levels of negative associations with alcohol than would CONAs (n = 82). The results indicated that although COAs had significantly fewer negative associations than CONAs they had statistically comparable levels of positive associations. Early intervention efforts among COAs may be enhanced by placing increased emphasis on alcohol's negative consequences.