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ABSTRACT
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) involves excessive alcohol consumption and loss of control over alcohol intake, and is most prevalent among young adults. Using data from grandparents, parents, and grandchildren, each party’s age-related communication patterns (e.g., making age-related excuses for their shortcomings, expressing optimism about growing older) were examined as predictors of young adult grandchildren’s AUD symptoms. Associations between age-related communication and grandchildren’s AUD symptoms emerged after controlling for a variety of potentially confounding factors (e.g., all three parties’ self-reported depressive symptoms, parents’ and grandparents’ unhealthy alcohol consumption, grandchildren’s relational closeness to parents and grandparents). Relative to families with engaged parents, families with gloomy parents had grandchildren who reported fewer AUD symptoms. Relative to families with engaged grandparents, families with bantering and gloomy grandparents had grandchildren who reported more AUD symptoms. Findings are discussed in terms of their contributions to the communicative ecology model of successful aging and the cultivation of resilience in families.
Notes
1. Within these constraints, grandchildren were given the leeway to define family however they wanted. As noted later in the main text, almost all parents and grandparents were biologically related to grandchildren.
2. This is the second study from the data set. In the first study, older family members’ age-related communication patterns were examined as predictors of younger family members’ age-related communication patterns. No content from the first study referenced alcohol consumption, which is the main focus of the current investigation.
3. A table of the bivariate correlations between the substantive variables is available upon request.
4. A full table of fit statistics for the latent profile analyses is available upon request. A latent profile plot of the chosen solution for each type of family member is also available upon request.