Abstract
Past research has explored the content and frequency of alcohol-specific communication between parents and their emerging adult children. The current study aimed to address a gap in the research by examining parents’ motivation for discussing alcohol. To accomplish this, we developed a multidimensional Parent Motives for Alcohol Communication Scale (PMACS). A total of 633 parents completed the PMACS along with measures assessing communication frequency, communication content, attitudes toward drinking, relationship quality, and perceptions of child alcohol use. An Exploratory Factor Analysis yielded five core communication motives. Parents were commonly motivated by desires to prevent their child’s alcohol use, to respond to their child’s heavy drinking, to teach their child how to drink safely, to meet relationship needs or expectations, and by a family history of alcohol problems. After controlling for demographic factors, communication motives predicted frequency of alcohol-specific communication. The patterns of relationship among motives and conceptually related constructs provided preliminary support for the construct validity of the PMACS.
Keywords: Parent communication, Emerging adulthood, Alcohol use, Communication motives
1. Introduction
Parents have been found to exert influence on their child’s alcohol use well into emerging adulthood. Parental communications about alcohol are an important component of parental influence. Parents discuss a variety of alcohol-related topics with their emerging adult children, including zero-tolerant messages, rule setting, warnings about dangers, and advice on how to drink safely (Baxter, Bylund, Imes, & Routsong, 2009; Menegatos, Lederman, & Floyd, 2016; Napper, Wolter, & Ebersole, 2020). While there is a growing body of research exploring the content of parent alcohol-specific communication with emerging adults (Abar, Abar, & Turrisi, 2009; Abar, Morgan, Small, & Maggs, 2012; Napper, 2019), there is relatively little research aimed at understanding parents’ motives for having these discussions. These specific motives are distinct from alcohol communication content. For example, there are a range of messages that could help parents achieve the goal of preventing alcohol use (e.g., warnings, rule setting).
Previous research suggests that motives are important predictors of parenting behaviors (Dix, 1991). Examples of general communication motives include communicating to provide information, exert control, maintain a close relationship, or to experience pleasure (Graham, Barbato, & Perse, 1993; Rubin, Perse, & Barbato, 1988). A parent’s motivation for communicating is related to perceptions of relationship satisfaction and quality of communication (Frisby & Martin, 2010; Punyanunt-Carter, 2005). These findings suggest that parents’ motives may be important for understanding the impact of communication, above and beyond the content of conversations. Researchers have called for additional work to explore motivations for parenting behaviors during emerging adulthood (Nelson, Padilla-Walker, Christensen, Evans, & Carroll, 2011) because this is a unique developmental period where parents may be attempting to balance providing their child with guidance while fostering their child’s independence.
Beyond general communication motives, alcohol-specific communication motives may be beneficial to examine. Past qualitative research exploring descriptions of conversations about substance use (Miller-Day & Dodd, 2004) suggests that parents may be motivated to initiate substance-related conversations to protect their children from the harmful effects of substances in the future and in response to concerns about their child’s current substance use. Further, when describing reasons for offering their child alcohol, parents have been found to describe being motivated to teach their child to drink safely and take away the perceived mystery of alcohol use (Bourdeau, Miller, Vanya, Duke, & Ames, 2012). These specific motivations are not addressed by general models of interpersonal communication. Further, it is unknown whether relational goals, that are common in the general interpersonal communication literature (Graham et al., 1993), are applicable to conversations about alcohol use.
In the current study we developed the Parent Motives for Alcohol Communication Scale (PMACS) to explore parents’ specific motivations for discussing alcohol with their emerging adult child. Based on this measure, we examined the most common communication motives. We hypothesized that parents with stronger motives (regardless of type of motive) would talk to their child more frequently about alcohol. Further, given past research highlighting potential gender differences in parenting (Nelson et al., 2011) and general communication motives (Barbato, Graham, & Perse, 2003; Rubin et al., 1988), we explored whether common motives varied based on parent gender and the interaction between parent and child gender. We also examined whether motives were related to parents’ own alcohol use, attitudes to drinking, perceptions of their child’s drinking, family history of alcohol use, and the content of their typical alcohol conversations. Identifying parents’ motives for communicating about alcohol with their children is important as this information can be used to tailor parent-based intervention (PBI) content to meet the individual needs of both the parent and the child.
2. Methods
2.1. Participants and procedures
Parents of emerging adults were recruited through Prime Panels (see Chandler, Rosenzweig, Moss, Robinson, & Litman, 2019). To be eligible to participate, participants had to report having a child between the ages of 18 and 25, living in the United States, and speaking English. A total of 729 parents completed the survey. Parents who reported that they had not spoken to their child about alcohol were not asked to complete the motives measure and were excluded from the analysis (n = 56). Participants who failed attention control questions were also excluded from the final dataset (n = 40). The final sample (N = 633) was predominantly mothers (85.3%; mean age = 51.0 years). The majority of the sample identified as White (89.3%), with 6.2% identifying as Black, 1.7% as Asian, 1.3% as American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 1.5% identifying as another race. In addition, 5.7% identified as Latino/a.
Parents with more than one emerging adult child were asked to select only one child to think about when answering survey questions. Parents were provided with reminders throughout the survey about which child to focus on when answering questions. Overall, 50.4% of parents answered the questions while thinking about a son (mean age = 21.3 years). The majority of children were living with their parent(s) (58.0%), and 41.1% of children were currently enrolled in college.
2.2. Measures
2.2.1. Parent Motives.
The PMACS items were developed based on past qualitative research (Bourdeau et al., 2012; Miller-Day & Dodd, 2004), and a pilot study in which 632 parents answered closed- (27 items) and open-ended questions about reasons for discussing alcohol with their emerging adult child. The pilot study was used to develop 16 additional items generated based on the open-ended responses and to ensure that potential factors would have adequate coverage (i.e., at least 3-items per factor; Costello & Osborne, 2005). In the current study, participants were provided with a list of 43 reasons parents sometimes give for talking to their child about alcohol and asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed that each reason applied to them (1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree).
2.2.2. Parent communication message
Parents completed 10 items assessing how often they talked to their child about alcohol use in the past 12 months (based on Napper, 2019). Response options ranged from Never (0) to 10 or more times (10). The mean of all items was used to assess overall frequency of communication (α = 0.93).
The measure was also used to determine whether parents’ communication content was predominantly zero-tolerant (5 items) or harm-reduction (5 items) focused. The zero tolerance items included how often parents expressed disappointment if their child drank and an expectation that the child should not drink. The harm reduction communication items assessed how often parents talked about ways to stay safe while drinking and the benefits of not exceeding a set limit when drinking. Following LaBrie and colleagues (2015), means scores for zero-tolerance (α = 0.87) and harm-reduction (α = 0.92) items were calculated and these were used to determine predominant communication content type. This measure indicates, regardless of frequency of communication, whether parents typically conveyed zero-tolerance (n = 194) or harm-reduction (n = 366) messages. Approximately, 11.5% of the sample did not have a predominant communication content.
2.2.3. Approval of alcohol use
Participants completed a 15-item measure of alcohol approval (adapted from Lewis et al., 2010). Participants indicated how acceptable they found, for example, drinking to get drunk and drinking under the age of 21 (1 = Unacceptable, 7 = Acceptable). A mean composite was created with higher scores indicating greater alcohol approval (α = 0.91).
2.2.4. Parent and family alcohol use
Participants completed the Daily Drinking Questionnaire (Collins, Parks, & Marlatt, 1985). Parents indicated the number of standard drinks consumed each day of the week on a typical week in the past 30 days. Responses were summed to create a measure of typical weekly alcohol use. In addition, parents were asked to indicate (Yes/No) if, to their knowledge, they had any biological relatives with a significant drinking problem (1-item).
2.2.5. Relationship quality
Parents completed an 8-item measure of parent-child relationship quality (adapted from Buchanan, Maccoby, & Dornbusch, 1991). Parents indicated, for instance, “How often does your child express affection or liking for you?” (1 = Not at all to 5 = Very much). A mean composite was created, with higher scores indicating a greater closeness between the parent and their child (α = 0.78).
2.2.6. Child characteristics
Parents indicated their child’s age, gender, living arrangements, and educational status. Parents also indicated on how many days they thought their child drank and the maximum number of drinks their child consumed on a single occasion.
2.3. Analytic plan
An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed to examine the factor structure of the PMACS. The KMO Measure of Sampling Adequacy (Kaiser, 1974) indicated that that correlation matrix was appropriate for EFA (0.88). Orthogonal and oblique rotations were examined and factor solutions were compared for interpretability (Pett, Lackey, & Sullivan, 2003). A combination of indicators were used to determine the appropriate number of factors to extract, including eigenvalue ≥ 1, Velicer’s MAP test, and interpretability (O’Connor, 2000; Velicer, Eaton, & Fava, 2000). Items with loadings ≥ 0.40 and with no cross-loadings ≥ 0.30 were retained in the final solution. The final analysis was performed using direct oblimin rotation and maximum likelihood estimation.
Bivariate correlations, independent samples t-tests, and ANOVAs were used to examine the associations among the PMACS subscales, demographic factors, and conceptually relevant constructs. Measures were examined for potential outliers (values more than 3SD from the mean), and where outliers were identified (parent alcohol use, perceived child alcohol use, parent alcohol attitudes) extreme values were replaced with a value one unit larger than the next most extreme value (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). The Holm-Bonferroni sequential correction (Holm, 1979) was used to address inflated Type 1 error due to multiple bivariate tests.
3. Results
3.1. Exploratory factor analysis for PMACS
The EFA yielded five factors (see Table 1). Of the initial 43 items, 28 were included in the final measure. Factor 1 consisted of six items reflective of parents being motivated to communicate to prevent their child from drinking (e.g., Because I don’t want my child to start drinking; Prevention Motive). Factor 2 consisted of six items reflective of parents being motivated because they believed their child may be engaging in heavy or risky drinking (e.g., Because my child drinks too much; Reactive Motive). Factor 3 consisted of eight items related to parents’ motivation to communicate because they believed they could teach their child how to drink in moderation (e.g., To teach my child to drink safely; Teaching Moderation Motive). Factor 4 included five items assessing parents communicating about alcohol use due to relational needs, expectations, and interests (e.g., Because it is fun to talk about my child’s social life; Relational Motives). Factor 5 included three items related to motivation based on past drinking problems within a child’s family or social network (e.g., Because a friend or family member has had bad experiences in the past related to drinking; Familial History Motives).
Table 1.
PMACS Item Factor Loadings.
| Factor 1 | Factor 2 | Factor 3 | Factor 4 | Factor 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I have spoken to my child about alcohol… | Prevention | Reactive | Teaching | Relational | History |
|
| |||||
| Because I don’t want my child to start drinking | 0.76 | − 0.02 | 0.002 | − 0.01 | 0.04 |
| Because drinking is bad for my child’s health | 0.75 | 0.02 | 0.06 | − 0.05 | 0.05 |
| To help prevent my child initiating drinking | 0.72 | − 0.02 | 0.04 | 0.04 | − 0.003 |
| Because drinking is wrong | 0.70 | − 0.07 | − 0.19 | 0.18 | − 0.06 |
| Because drinking leads to behaviors and actions that are morally wrong | 0.64 | − 0.04 | − 0.04 | 0.09 | 0.14 |
| To help prevent my child drinking heavily in the future | 0.42 | 0.02 | 0.27 | 0.05 | 0.20 |
| Because my child drinks too much | 0.03 | −0.86 | 0.03 | − 0.09 | 0.04 |
| Because my child came home drunk | 0.10 | − 0.83 | 0.07 | − 0.05 | 0.001 |
| Because my child got sick from drinking alcohol | − 0.03 | − 0.75 | 0.09 | − 0.05 | 0.09 |
| Because my child helps them self to alcohol without permission | − 0.04 | − 0.72 | 0.01 | 0.07 | 0.02 |
| Because my child threw a party where alcohol was served | − 0.04 | − 0.70 | − 0.03 | 0.05 | − 0.01 |
| Because alcohol has caused my child problems at school, home, or work | 0.10 | − 0.64 | − 0.10 | 0.09 | 0.01 |
| To teach my child to drink safely | − 0.10 | − 0.14 | 0.81 | 0.01 | − 0.10 |
| To help my child learn how to drink in moderation | − 0.15 | − 0.17 | 0.71 | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| To encourage my child to talk openly about
their experiences with alcohol |
− 0.02 | 0.01 | 0.68 | − 0.03 | 0.08 |
| Because I want my child to be able to talk honestly with me about drinking | 0.18 | 0.20 | 0.68 | − 0.06 | 0.09 |
| Because I want to be proactive when it comes to my child’s alcohol use | 0.28 | 0.09 | 0.62 | − 0.11 | 0.05 |
| To take the mystery away from drinking | 0.13 | 0.03 | 0.50 | 0.17 | − 0.05 |
| Because I want my child to be able to talk to me about anything |
0.21 | 0.24 | 0.49 | − 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Because I do not want my child to view alcohol
as a “forbidden fruit” |
− 0.25 | 0.01 | 0.48 | 0.13 | 0.001 |
| Because it is fun to talk about my child’s social life | − 0.04 | 0.08 | 0.01 | 0.74 | 0.05 |
| Because other parents talk with their children about alcohol | 0.04 | − 0.05 | 0.01 | 0.71 | − 0.02 |
| Because it is what friends do | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.61 | 0.03 |
| Because I want to feel connected to my child | 0.20 | 0.05 | 0.26 | 0.45 | 0.07 |
| Because someone told me that I should talk to my child about alcohol | 0.07 | − 0.28 | − 0.08 | 0.43 | − 0.03 |
| Because a friend or family member has had bad experiences in the past related to drinking | − 0.03 | 0.03 | − 0.02 | 0.07 | 0.79 |
| Because there is a family history of alcoholism or addiction in our family | 0.06 | − 0.02 | − 0.12 | 0.002 | 0.74 |
| Because I had a bad experience in the past related to drinking | − 0.04 | − 0.12 | 0.05 | − 0.02 | 0.62 |
| Cronbach’s alpha | 0.85 | 0.89 | 0.83 | 0.76 | 0.76 |
| M(SD) | 4.83 (1.35) | 1.94 (1.32) | 5.61 (1.08) | 3.63 (1.28) | 4.26 (1.91) |
| Range | 1–7 | 1–7 | 1–7 | 1–7 | 1–7 |
The most common motives for communication were to teach children how to drink safely (M = 5.61, SD = 1.08), to prevent a child from drinking (M = 4.93, SD =1.35), and because of problems with alcohol in a child’s family (M = 4.26, SD = 1.91; see Table 1). The PMACS subscales demonstrated acceptable internal reliability (0.76 < α < 0.89), and inter-factor correlations between factors ranged from small (r = 0.11) to moderate (r = 0.36).
3.2. Associations between PMACS subscales and conceptually relevant constructs
Correlations between PMACS subscales and continuous measures are presented in Table 2. Reactive motives were positively correlated with parent approval of alcohol use, perceived frequency, amount of child’s alcohol use, and negatively associated with relationship quality. Teaching motives were positively correlated with how often they believed their child consumed alcohol, frequency of communication, and relationship quality. Further, harm reduction (vs. zero tolerant) dominant communicators scored significantly higher on teaching motives. Relational motives were only positively correlated with frequency of communication. Family history of alcohol use motives were positively correlated with frequency of communication. Further, parents who reported having a relative with a drinking problem (vs. without) scored significantly higher on the family history motive.
Table 2.
Correlations among parent communication motives and related measures.
| Related Measures | PMACS Subscales | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||||
| Prevention | Reactive | Teaching | Relational | Family History | |
|
| |||||
| Frequency of communication | 0.33* | 0.04 | 0.33* | 0.14* | 0.23* |
| Parent approval of alcohol use | − 0.54* | 0.20* | 0.10 | − 0.03 | − 0.10 |
| Parent alcohol use | − 0.16* | 0.10 | 0.03 | 0.01 | 0.04 |
| Parent-child relationship quality | 0.09 | − 0.30* | 0.27* | − 0.01 | 0.05 |
| Parent Perceptions of Child’s Use Frequency of alcohol use | − 0.16* | 0.24* | 0.14* | − 0.02 | 0.05 |
| Maximum number of drinks | − 0.17* | 0.30* | 0.12 | − 0.04 | 0.04 |
p < .002.
The results of t-tests comparing group differences in motives are presented in Table 3. Prevention motives were negatively correlated with parent approval of alcohol use, perceptions of how much and how frequently a child used, and parent alcohol use, and positively correlated with frequency of alcohol communication. Additionally, parents who reported having a relative with a drinking problem (vs. those without), a child under the age of 21 (vs. 21 or over), and zero tolerant (vs. harm reduction) dominant communication content scored significantly higher on the prevention motives.
Table 3.
Differences in Communication Motives.
| Family History of Alcohol Problems | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||||
| Yes | No | |||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
| PMACS Subscale | M | SD | M | SD | t | df | P | d |
|
| ||||||||
| Prevention | 5.15 | 1.28 | 4.71 | 1.38 | 4.11 | 631 | <0.001* | 0.33 |
| Reactive | 1.95 | 1.29 | 1.92 | 1.29 | 0.34 | 631 | 0.731 | 0.03 |
| Teaching | 5.63 | 1.07 | 5.58 | 1.08 | 0.61 | 631 | 0.539 | 0.05 |
| Relational | 3.62 | 1.30 | 3.65 | 1.26 | − 0.28 | 631 | 0.781 | − 0.02 |
| Family History | 5.26 | 1.55 | 3.29 | 1.71 | 15.13 | 627.75 | <0.001* | 1.20 |
| Child’s Age | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Under 21 | 21 or Older | |||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
| PMACS Subscale | M | SD | M | SD | t | df | P | d |
|
| ||||||||
| Prevention | 5.18 | 1.25 | 4.76 | 1.39 | 3.90 | 631 | <0.001* | 0.32 |
| Reactive | 1.90 | 1.37 | 1.96 | 1.23 | − 0.58 | 631 | 0.560 | − 0.05 |
| Teaching | 5.53 | 1.09 | 5.66 | 1.06 | −1.58 | 631 | 0.115 | − 0.13 |
| Relational | 3.74 | 1.31 | 3.55 | 1.26 | 1.82 | 631 | 0.069 | 0.15 |
| Family History | 4.31 | 1.91 | 4.23 | 1.91 | 0.54 | 631 | 0.590 | 0.04 |
| Parent Sex | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Male | Female | |||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
| PMACS Subscale | M | SD | M | SD | t | df | P | d |
|
| ||||||||
| Prevention | 4.65 | 1.43 | 4.98 | 1.33 | − 2.18 | 631 | 0.030 | − 0.25 |
| Reactive | 2.48 | 1.54 | 1.85 | 1.26 | 3.73 | 114.18 | <0.001* | 0.48 |
| Teaching | 5.21 | 1.25 | 5.68 | 1.03 | − 3.90 | 631 | <0.001* | − 0.44 |
| Relational | 3.99 | 1.27 | 3.57 | 1.28 | 2.95 | 631 | 0.003 | 0.33 |
| Family History | 4.23 | 1.83 | 4.27 | 1.92 | − 0.19 | 631 | 0.848 | − 0.02 |
| Dominant Type of Alcohol Communication | ||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| Zero Tolerance | Harm-reduction | |||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
| PMACS Subscale | M | SD | M | SD | t-value | df | P-value | d |
|
| ||||||||
| Prevention | 5.67 | 1.14 | 4.49 | 1.30 | 11.16 | 436.85 | <0.001* | 0.95 |
| Reactive | 1.86 | 1.341 | 1.87 | 1.21 | − 0.11 | 558 | 0.913 | − 0.01 |
| Teaching | 5.20 | 1.14 | 5.90 | 0.90 | − 7.40 | 321.42 | <0.001* | − 0.71 |
| Relational | 3.67 | 1.28 | 3.54 | 1.24 | 1.25 | 558 | 0.211 | 0.11 |
| Family History | 4.55 | 1.85 | 4.07 | 1.96 | 2.78 | 558 | 0.006 | 0.25 |
Notes. M = Means; SD = Standard Deviation; df = degrees of freedom; d = Cohen’s d
p < .002.
While patterns of common motives were the same for mothers and fathers, there were statistically significant differences in the strength of motives for mothers and fathers. For example, reactive motives were stronger for fathers than mothers. In contrast, mothers report higher levels of teaching moderation motives than fathers. With the exception of preventative motives (F(1,629) = 11.97, p = .001), parent sex did not interact with child sex in predicting differences in communication motives. Fathers had higher levels of preventative motives for communication with daughters (M = 5.23, SD = 1.04) than with sons (M = 4.21, SD = 1.54), p < .001, d = 0.77. Mothers did not differ in preventative motives for sons (M = 4.99, SD = 1.37) and daughters (M = 4.97, SD = 1.29), p = .83.
3.3. Frequency of communication
A hierarchical regression was used to examine the contribution of alcohol-specific communication motives over and above parent sex, child sex, child age, and perceived child’s alcohol use (Step 1) in predicting frequency of alcohol communication. After controlling for demographics, three motives emerged as significant predictors of communication frequency (see Table 4). Parents communicated more frequency about alcohol when they were motivated to teach their children (B = 0.61, p < .001), to prevent alcohol use (B = 0.60, p < .001), and because of a family history of alcohol problems (B = 0.11, p = .047).
Table 4.
Hierarchical regression predicting frequency of communication.
| Predictors | B | SE | p | ΔR2 | F | p |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| ||||||
| Step 1 | 0.05 | 6.79 | <0.001 | |||
| Child’s Sex | 0.76 | 0.30 | 0.011 | |||
| Child age (over or under 21) | − 0.29 | 0.22 | 0.195 | |||
| Perceived frequency of alcohol use | 0.27 | 0.38 | 0.012 | |||
| Perceived maximum number of drinks | 0.19 | 0.05 | <0.001 | |||
| Step 2 PMACS Subscales | 0.24 | 19.85 | <0.001 | |||
| Prevention | 0.60 | 0.08 | <0.001 | |||
| Reactive | − 0.03 | 0.08 | 0.751 | |||
| Teaching Moderation | 0.61 | 0.10 | <0.001 | |||
| Relational | − 0.04 | 0.08 | 0.652 | |||
| Family History | 0.11 | 0.06 | 0.047 | |||
Note. Unstandardized coefficients reported.
4. Discussion
Past research examining parents’ alcohol-specific communication with their emerging adult children has focused on how conversations take place (i.e., content and frequency), rather than parents’ reasons for discussing alcohol. The present study examined parents’ specific motivations for discussing alcohol with their emerging adult children in order to develop a new measure of parents’ communication motives (PMACS). The findings indicated that several motives from the PMACS predicted frequency of parent–child alcohol communications.
The EFA found five motives for discussing alcohol use with their emerging adult child (i.e., preventative, reactive, teaching moderation, relational, and family history). Of these, both the desire to prevent a child using alcohol and to teach a child to drink safely emerged as the most common communication motives. Prevention motives were particularly prevalent in parents of children under the legal drinking age. The commonality of these two potentially competing motives highlights the challenges parents may face discussing alcohol use during emerging adulthood. Especially for parents of younger emerging adults, parents may struggle to balance preparing their child to be independent and make responsible choices around alcohol use, while also recognizing that alcohol use can have negative consequences (including legal problems).
Past research on general interpersonal communication motives suggests that parents are most often motivated to talk to their adult children for relationally-orientated reasons and that these motives may promote positive parent–child interactions (Barbato et al., 2003). The current results suggest that relational motives are less prominent in the context of parents discussing alcohol during emerging adulthood. Further, being motivated to communicate for relational reasons was not associated with relationship closeness. These findings may reflect the potentially challenging nature of alcohol discussions. For instance, parents may sometimes lack self-efficacy to engage in conversations to influence their child’s alcohol use (e.g., Koning, van den Eijnden, Glatz, & Vollebergh, 2013).
We predicted that communication motives should be positively associated with frequency of alcohol-specific communication. With the exception of the reactive motive, the bivariate analyses suggested that parents with stronger communication motives talked to their children more frequently about alcohol. Similarly, the regression results indicated that after controlling for demographic factors, parents’ motives related to prevention, teaching, and family history were all associated with communication frequency. The fact that the reactive motive was not associated with frequency of communication either bivariately or multivariately, may reflect the specific nature of this motive. Parents with stronger reactive motivation may be energized to communicate in response to a specific, concerning alcohol-related behavior on the part of their child. This may result in a one-time conversation to address the problematic behavior, rather than ongoing and frequent discussions about drinking. Indeed, given that parents high in the reactive motive also reported lower relationship quality with their child, this may indicate these parents are having less open and frequent conversations with their child in general.
Several interesting statistically significant relationships emerged among the PMACS subscales and conceptually relevant constructs. For example, parents with greater prevention motivation were more disapproving of alcohol use, believed their child drank less, and used more zero-tolerant communication than parents who were low in prevention motivation. In contrast, parents high in reactive motivation were more approving of alcohol use and perceived their children to be heavier drinkers. Those with greater motivation to teach their children were more likely to give harm-reduction advice than zero-tolerant advice. Parents who reported a family history of alcohol problems were more likely to report being motivated by a family history and to prevent their child drinking than those without a family history. Taken together, the pattern of results provides preliminary support for the construct validity of the PMACS.
Findings from this study also suggest that overall order of commonality of communication motives were the same for mothers and fathers. However, mothers did report greater teaching motives than fathers, and fathers had greater reactive motives than mothers. These findings are similar to previous work suggesting that mothers are more likely to reason with their child, and fathers are more likely to use punishment and verbal hostility when parenting emerging adults (Nelson et al., 2011). Further research is needed to understand whether differences in alcohol-specific communication motives are related to other differences in parenting styles during emerging adulthood.
4.1. Implications
The current findings could have implications for PBIs that encourage parents to talk to their emerging adults about alcohol. It may be important to recognize that parents not only vary quantitatively in terms of motivation, but also qualitatively in terms of their communication goals. Parent communication motives could potentially moderate the impact of PBIs. For example, parents who are strongly motivated to communicate to teach their child to drink moderately may respond less positively to intervention content on the risks of parental permissiveness compared to parents high in prevention motivation. Differences in motives to communicate could also inform PBI recruitment efforts and reduce selection bias by utilizing messages that appeal to different motives. For example, recruitment materials could highlight that the intervention includes content that can help parents prevent alcohol use, reduce risky drinking, and deal with the unanticipated events that their child might encounter if they drink. Similarly, intervention content could be matched to parent motives in order to increase intervention engagement and acceptance (Hawkins, Kreuter, Resnicow, Fishbein, & Dijkstra, 2008). Future studies are needed to confirm whether or not this strategy can be effective.
4.2. Limitations and future directions
The current study has several implications for future research. First, work is needed to explore children’s perceptions of parents’ motives for communication. Emerging adults’ perceptions of their parents’ motives for giving advice on a non-alcohol related topic has been found to be associated with their evaluations of the advice and plans to implement it (Guntzviller, Ratcliff, & Pusateri, 2021). It is possible that a child’s perceptions of their parents’ motives also predict how they respond to alcohol-specific messages.
The current study examined parents’ motivations for communicating. It is possible that there are distinct motives for not communicating about alcohol that are not captured by these motives. For example, parents may choose not to communicate because they feel it is unnecessary, they believe their child will not listen, or they feel they lack the skills needed to have these discussions. While we found the vast majority of the sample had talked to the child about alcohol, future research examining motives for not having alcohol discussions would be beneficial.
While we saw limited differences in motives for parents of children under and over the legal drinking age, it is not clear from the current study if parents’ communication motives are stable over time. Longitudinal research is needed to examine this question and if motives predict future communication behaviors. Examining the prospective effects of motives on communication behaviors would also provide stronger evidence to support the construct validity of the PMACS. Future research is also needed to determine the convergent and divergent validity of this measure.
Finally, the current study focused on whether motives predicted explicit verbal alcohol-specific communication. Parents may use non-verbal approaches to meet communication goals. For instance, a parent could choose to restrict access to alcohol in the home or offer alcohol in specific contexts to fulfill goals related to prevention or teaching. Future research could examine whether the communication motives identified in the current study also predict types and frequency of indirect alcohol-specific communication.
4.3. Conclusions
Overall, the current study contributes to our understanding of parents’ reasons for talking to their emerging adult children about alcohol. The current study provides preliminary support for the PMACS as a reliable and valid measure of parent alcohol-specific communication motives. Parent motives were found to predict frequency of communication and be associated with a range of conceptually relevant constructs. However, future research is needed to provide additional support for both the reliability and validity of the PMACS.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this study was provided by NIAAA Grants R34 AA026032 and R34 AA026422. NIAAA had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Footnotes
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Lucy E. Napper: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft. Bradley M. Trager: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft. Rob Turrisi: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. Joseph W. LaBrie: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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