Predicting problem behaviors with multiple expectancies: expanding expectancy-value theory

Expectancy-value theory emphasizes the importance of outcome expectancies for behavioral decisions, but most tests of the theory focus on a single behavior and a single expectancy. However, the matching law suggests that individuals consider expected outcomes for both the target behavior and alternative behaviors when making decisions. In this study, we expanded expectancy-value theory to evaluate the contributions of two competing expectancies to adolescent behavior problems. One hundred twenty-one high school students completed measures of behavior problems, expectancies for both acting out and academic effort, and perceived academic competence. Students' self-reported behavior problems covaried mostly with perceived competence and academic expectancies and only nominally with problem behavior expectancies. We suggest that behavior problems may result from students perceiving a lack of valued or feasible alternative behaviors, such as studying. We discuss implications for interventions and suggest that future research continue to investigate the contribution of alternative expectancies to behavioral decisions.     

Predicting Condom Use in African American STD Patients: The Role of Two Types of Outcome Expectancies1

This study examined the association of two types of condom use outcome expectancies (self-approval and partner reaction) with patterns of safer sexual behavior among predominantly African American patients at a sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinic. As expected, both individuals' own self-approval outcome expectancies and their partner reaction outcome expectancies predicted consistency of condom use, although partner reaction expectancies predicted condom use above and beyond the effects of self-approval expectancies. Furthermore, individuals who believed that they and their partner shared positive condom use outcome expectancies reported the greatest use of condoms. These findings suggest that HIV prevention programs should address both types of condom use outcome expectancies in order to maximize behavior change.     

What you expect is not always what you get: The roles of extremity, optimism, and pessimism in the behavioral confirmation process

Do pessimists and optimists elicit the very behavior they expect from others? What if their expectations are fairly extreme? Using a simulated job interview paradigm, evidence was found for behavioral confirmation of generalized future-event expectancies (optimism/pessimism) and for the moderating role of extremity. Interviewers with nonextreme expectancies gathered information in an expectancy-biased fashion and elicited expectancy-confirming behavior from applicants. However, as interviewer expectancies became more extreme, these effects were attenuated. Further evidence suggested that extremity is associated with effortful correction processes and awareness of bias. Interestingly, pessimistic applicants were more strongly influenced by interviewers’ expectancies than were optimistic applicants. The current study extends research on the social-cognitive consequences of generalized future-event expectancies and extremity to the behavioral domain.     

Differential Determinants of Young Adult Substance Use and High‐Risk Sexual Behavior1

This investigation evaluated how personality traits, self‐efficacy, and outcome expectancies differentially relate to young adult substance use and high‐risk sex. Experiments I (N= 481) and 2 (N= 73) report the development of a new questionnaire to assess self‐efficacy for substance use and sexual behavior. Experiment 3 (N= 375) tested self‐efficacy, outcome expectancies, and trait measures of social conformity and sensation seeking as correlates of substance use and high‐risk sex. Using structural equation modeling, cross‐sectional analyses revealed that positive outcome expectancies had the largest association with substance use, whereas self‐efficacy had the largest association with sexual behavior. Further, personality traits were related to substance use and sexual behavior indirectly through outcome expectancies, with social conformity also having a direct effect on behavior. When examined longitudinally, past alcohol and drug use served as the final pathway by which expectancies and personality impacted substance use, whereas past behavior, self‐efficacy, and social conformity all contributed to high‐risk sex. Results support the utility of different models for explaining, and possibly preventing, young adult substance use and high‐risk sex.     

Expectancy Accessibility and the Influence of Outcome Expectancies on Adolescent Smokeless Tobacco Use

This study investigated the moderating influence of expectancy accessibility on the relation between outcome expectancies and drug use intentions. Specifically, it was hypothesized that expectancies made temporarily more accessible would predict smokeless tobacco intentions to a greater degree than would less accessible expectancies. In addition, it was anticipated that expectancies regarding positive outcomes of smokeless tobacco use would be better predictors of intention than would expectancies about negative outcomes. Results partially supported the accessibility hypothesis, but this effect occurred for positive outcome expectancies only. In addition, the anticipated prepotency of positive over negative expectancies in predicting drug use intentions was strongly supported. These findings are consistent with theories of problem behavior which differentiate between positive and negative outcome expectancies and which postulate that accessibility of expectancies plays an important role in expectancy-behavior relations.     

Global positive expectancies of the self and adolescents' substance use avoidance: testing a social influence mediational model

Grounded in theories of global positive expectancies and social influences of behavior, this investigation posited a model in which global positive expectancies are related to substance use as mediated by attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy, and intentions. Using a cohort sample (n = 525), structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized predictions of future substance use. The findings suggest that, relative to adolescents with lower global positive expectancies, adolescents with higher global positive expectancies use substances less frequently over time because of their protective attitudinal and control-oriented perceptions towards that behavior. Additionally, results from the current investigation also extend prior findings on the factor structure of global positive expectancies, suggesting these expectancies can be viewed as a second-order factor representing optimism and two components of hope-agency and pathways.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING AND CHANGING EMPLOYEE OUTCOME EXPECTANCIES FOR GAINING COMMITMENT TO AN ORGANIZATIONAL GOAL

Senior management and the union executive committee of a forest products company set an organizational goal to reduce theft from approximately a million dollars a year to zero. Salaried and hourly employees, selected at random, were interviewed regarding their outcome expectancies for honest and dishonest behavior. The responses were categorized within a 2 × 2 empathy box (honest/dishonest behavior vs. positive/negative outcome expectancies) to allow the organization's leadership to understand from the employee's perspective why there was so much theft. This information was subsequently used to alter employee outcome expectancies which, in turn, changed behavior. Theft dropped to near zero.     

Effects of Communication Expectancies,Actual Communication,and Expectancy Disconfirmation on Evaluations of Communicators and Their Communication Behavior

The current investigation addressed (a) the perseverance of preinteraction expectancies in the face of actual communication behavior, (b) the separate effects of personal attribute and communication expectancies, and (c) the role of expectancy confirmation or disconfirmation on postinteraction evaluations. Participant perceivers were induced to hold positive or negative expectancies regarding a target partner's general personal attributes and specific communication behavior prior to a problem-solving discussion. They then interacted with a confederate target who communicated in a pleasant, involved fashion or its opposite, after which perceivers evaluated target personal attributes and communication behavior. All three hypotheses received at least partial support. Preinteractional expectancies, especially personal attribute ones, caused perceivers to evaluate targets and their communication behavior differently, with negatively valenced expectancies serving as negative violations. Relative to a pleasant, involved communication style, unpleasant, uninvolved communication was less expected and evaluated negatively, thus functioning as a negative violation; it also reduced credibility, attraction, and perceived rewardingness of the target. Finally, disconfirmatory communication altered target evaluations relative to confirmatory communication, especially for high-valence targets. These results lend support to the premises and predictions of expectancy violations theory.     

Alcohol expectancies, alcohol use, and hostility as longitudinal predictors of alcohol-related aggression

The direct and interactive effects of alcohol expectancies for aggression, dispositional hostility, and heavy alcohol consumption on alcohol-related physical aggression were examined across the first four years of marriage in a sample of 634 newlywed couples. For husbands, alcohol aggression expectancies predicted increases in alcohol-related aggression; across husbands and wives, however, aggression expectancies were not found to interact with hostility or alcohol consumption to predict physical aggression. Consistent with previous research, hostility and alcohol consumption interacted with each other to predict alcohol-related aggression. Specifically, for both husbands and wives high in dispositional hostility, heavy alcohol consumption was positively associated with the occurrence of alcohol-related aggression; for those low in dispositional hostility, however, there was no association between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related aggression. Findings are contrasted with previous longitudinal research on alcohol aggression expectancies and physical aggression in married couples. The article discusses the extent to which findings may vary depending on whether expectancies are assessed in relation to alcohol's effect on one's own behavior versus alcohol's effect on others' behavior.     

Parent Expectancies for Child Therapy: Assessment and Relation to Participation in Treatment

Two studies examined parents' pre-treatment expectancies for their child's psychotherapy among children (N = 405, ages 2–15) referred for oppositional, aggressive, and antisocial behavior. Study I focused on the development of a measure to assess expectancies. The results indicated that the measure was internally consistent. Moreover, socioeconomic disadvantage and ethnic minority status, severity of child dysfunction, child age, and parental stress and depression were significant predictors of lower parent expectancies for child therapy. Study II examined the relation of parent expectancies and participation in therapy. The results indicated that parent expectancies predicted subsequent barriers to treatment participation, treatment attendance, and premature termination from therapy. Overall, these findings have implications for the study of expectancies for therapy, for identifying families at risk for premature termination from treatment, and for the development of interventions designed to increase parent participation in child therapy.     

青少年饮酒期望与饮酒行为的关系:追踪研究的证据

通过对1000余名青少年为期一年的追踪调查,探讨了青少年饮酒期望与饮酒行为之间的关系,同时考察了饮酒期望的发展和性别差异。研究结果表明:(1)一年来青少年的饮酒行为、饮酒消极期望和饮酒积极期望都显著增加;女生的饮酒行为和饮酒积极期望的增加都显著高于男生。(2)第二次测查时,青少年的饮酒行为、饮酒积极期望和饮酒消极期望高于一年前原同年级的学生。(3)饮酒积极期望、消极期望和饮酒行为之间的基本关系一年来没有发生变化:消极期望可能降低饮酒行为,积极期望可能增加饮酒行为,消极期望对积极期望与饮酒行为的关系具有显著的调节作用。但是消极期望对饮酒行为的作用降低,积极期望的作用升高。     

Thinness and eating expectancies predict subsequent binge-eating and purging behavior among adolescent girls

One's expectancies for reinforcement from eating or from thinness are thought to represent summaries of one's eating-related learning history and to thus influence the development of binge-eating and purging behavior. In a 3-year longitudinal study, the authors tested this hypothesis and the hypothesis that binge eating also influences subsequent expectancy development. The authors used trajectory analysis to identify groups of middle school girls who followed different trajectories of binge eating, purging, eating expectancies, and thinness expectancies. Initial eating and thinness reinforcement expectancies identified girls whose binge eating and purging increased during middle school, and expectancies differentiated girls who began these problem behaviors from girls who did not. Initial binge-eating scores differentiated among eating expectancy developmental trajectories. The onset of most behaviors can be understood in terms of learned expectancies for reinforcement from these behaviors. The same model can be applied to the risk for eating disorders.     

Proactive and reactive aggression in delinquent adolescents: relations to aggression outcome expectancies

Investigated whether the relation between aggression and the tendency to expect positive outcomes for aggressive behavior is specific to the proactive subtype of aggression (as opposed to the reactive subtype). In a sample of 86 incarcerated adolescent boys ages 13 to 18, we measured outcome expectancies for aggression using audiotaped hypothetical vignettes. For each participant, staff members completed proactive and reactive aggression rating scales. Regression analyses revealed that the relation between aggression and outcome expectancies was indeed specific to proactive aggression. Furthermore, this finding was supported regardless of whether outcome expectancies were assessed using vignettes describing proactive-aggressive behavior or those describing reactive-aggressive behavior. We discuss these findings and argue that interventions to reduce proactive or reactive aggression should differ from each other by addressing the specific social cognitive processes involved in each type of aggression.     

Chronic and temporary distinct expectancies as comparison standards: automatic contrast in dispositional judgments

In 4 studies, the authors examined whether making outcome expectancies distinct resulted in their use as comparison standards and, consequently, in contrastive dispositional inferences for a target's behaviors. The expectancies examined were based on either chronic future-event expectancies (Study 1) or temporary, manipulated expectancy standards (Studies 2-4). Analyses revealed that when contextual expectancies were distinct or separable from target information, participants' dispositional judgments were contrasted from them under cognitive load and overcorrected (assimilated to them) under no load. These effects were mediated by participants' behavior categorizations. Evidence suggestive of a proceduralized form of correction for task difficulty and an effortful awareness-based correction for the effects of expectancies also were found. Results are examined in light of recent models of the dispositional inference process.     

Risk factors for nonsuicidal self‐injury in Japanese college students: The moderating role of mood regulation expectancies

Self‐injurious behavior is increasing among college students, and is common in both psychiatric and nonclinical populations. People's engaging in self‐injury is associated with childhood maltreatment, poor negative mood regulation expectancies, and depression. During times of distress, maltreated children without healthy coping strategies tend to have impairment in mood regulation, which contributes to engaging in self‐injury. This study investigated differences between nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) and non‐self‐injury groups in history of childhood maltreatment, negative mood regulation expectancies, and depression in a sample of Japanese college students. We also assessed risk factors for self‐injurious behavior, including mood regulation expectancies as a moderator of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and NSSI. Participants were 313 undergraduate students, who completed anonymous self‐report questionnaires—Deliberate Self‐Harm Inventory, Child Abuse and Trauma Scale, Negative Mood Regulation Scale, and short version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies–Depression Scale. Ten percent (n = 31) of all participants had injured themselves. Consistent with past literature, participants with self‐injury history reported more severe childhood maltreatment, poorer mood regulation expectancies, and more depression, compared to non‐self‐injurers. Frequency of NSSI positively correlated with childhood maltreatment and depression, and negatively correlated with negative mood regulation expectancies. Regression analysis revealed that stronger expectancies for negative mood regulation interacted with maltreatment to predict self‐injury: More maltreatment was associated with more self‐injury, particularly among those with weaker expectancies. Results suggested childhood maltreatment, low expectancies for negative mood regulation, and depression predicted self‐injury. Consistent with our moderation hypothesis, strong expectancies for negative mood regulation buffered the effects of childhood maltreatment, reducing the risk for self‐injury.     

Time estimation and expectancies

The purpose of this research was to examine the influence of different types of expectancies on time estimation behavior. In Experiment 1, subjects were led to expect that a given number of trials would occur in a music perception task. In Experiment 2, expectancies concerning the duration of a given waiting period were varied. Results of both experiments indicated that the confirmation/violation of expectancies exerted a significant im acton4urationjudgments. When subjects received more/fewer trials than expected or waited for a duration-that-waslonger/shorter than expected, the total duration of these time spans was over- and underestimated, respectively. Conversely, time estimates were relatively accurate whensubjects' expectancies were confirmed. The results of Experiment 1 further revealedthat reaction time responses within-the-music perception task were also systematically influenced by the expected amount of activity. Results are discussed in terms of a framework that emphasizes the role of anticipatory attending on time estimation behavior.     

Negative HIV-specific expectancies and AIDS-related bereavement as predictors of symptom onset in asymptomatic HIV-positive gay men.

This study examined negative HIV-related expectancies, AIDS-related bereavement, and the interaction of expectancies and bereavement as predictors of the onset of significant HIV-related symptoms among previously asymptomatic HIV-positive gay men. From a longitudinal psychobiological investigation, 72 men were selected who had been HIV-positive and asymptomatic from study entry (approximately 3 years). Participants were followed for an additional 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years after psychosocial assessment, with symptom status assessed every 6 months. The interaction of negative HIV-specific expectancies and bereavement was a significant predictor of symptom onset. Negative HIV-specific expectancies predicted the subsequent development of symptoms among bereaved men, controlling for immunological status, use of zidovudine, high-risk sexual behavior, substance use, and depression.     

Emotionally Based Expectancies and Willingness To Use Aversive Therapy

Intellectually based expectancies are beliefs about the world that are subjectively perceived as true. Emotionally based expectancies are beliefs that have an "as if" quality to them. The two types of expectancies derive from different sources and are influenced by different variables. This study examined the relationship between these two types of expectancies and willingness to use aversive therapy. Forty-seven undergraduate subjects were first given a brief lecture on childhood autism and the treatment of self-injurious behavior by aversive therapy. Afterwards, they indicated on a brief questionnaire their intellectually and emotionally based expectancies about how effective aversive therapy would be. Finally, they indicated their willingness to use aversive therapy themselves with autistic children. The partial correlation of emotionally based expectancies with stated intentions was .48, that of intellectually based expectancies with stated intentions was .10. As predicted, the emotionally based expectancy correlation was significantly higher.