Rethinking positive and negative aspects of alcohol use: suggestions from a comparison of alcohol expectancies and decisional balance.

Data suggest that decisional balance scales may be a better choice because their predictive ability is equal to or better than that of expectancies, and their response burden on participants is lower.

Abstract

Although expectancies, particularly PE, have been a common choice for use by researchers, these data suggest that decisional balance scales may be a better choice because their predictive ability is equal to or better than that of expectancies, and their response burden on participants is lower. Instruments that aim to measure the negative aspects of alcohol use should include severe and distal items to better capture this negative attitudinal domain.