Fathers and sons: Structuring autobiographical memory of alcohol careers during infancy and early childhood

57 FATHERS AND SONS: STRUCTURING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY OF ALCOHOL CAREERS DURING INFANCY AND EARLY CHILDHOOD Hiram E. Fitzgerald and Robert A. Zucker Michigan State University and the University of Michigan The Michigan State University-University of Michigan (MSU-UM) Longitudinal Study is a prospective study of children at high risk for the later development of alcoholism, with high antisocial comorbidity, as well as high risk for a wide variety of intraindividual, interpersonal, and sociocultural difficulties, including the development of other psychopathology, social complications, poor school achievement, poor physical health status, marital difficulties, divorce, lower levels of occupational achievement, and earlier death (Zucker, Fitzgerald, & Moses, 1995). Findings from the MSU-UM study as well as findings from spin-off studies indicate that preschool aged sons of alcoholics have cognitive schemas about alcohol that include the contextual, motivational, and normative aspects of use (Zucker & Fitzgerald, 1991). Preschool aged sons of male alcoholics are better able to identify specific alcoholic beverages, to correctly identify a larger number of alcoholic beverages than are sons of non-alcoholics, and to have cognitive schemas that include alcohol consumption as an attribute associated with adult male roles. Moreover, differences in the amount of drinking attributed to male adults is predicted by same gender parent’s self-reported consumption level. In other words, preschool aged male sons of alcoholics already are aware of familiar adults’ patterns of alcohol use (Kincaid et al., in press; No11et al., 1990; No11et al., 1992; Zucker & Fitzgerald, 1991; Zucker et al., 1995). When considered in the context of a broader developmental literature, alcohol expectancies of preschool age children are far more complex organizational structures than currently conceptualized. Consider for example, recent findings from studies of the early years of life that are related to the development for memory of familiar events. In recent times, investigators have focused on such topics as event recall (Bauer, 1996), inferential intentionality (Meltzoff, 1995), belief-reasoning (Bartsch & Wellman, 1989), gender specific recall (Davidson, 1996) in infants from 8 to 30 months of age. Rovee-Collier (1997) convincingly argued that implicit and explicit memory systems are equally active in young infants and contrary to conventional dogma, they do not appear to develop at differential rates. Finally Howe and Courage (1997) link the development of autobiographical memory with the emergence of a concept of self during the second year of life. Clearly, by three years of age, children have working models or schemas about familiar events. We argue that the actions and activities of the alcoholic family are familiar events to the three-year old male and provide the experiential foundation for the construction of an alcoholic career. This systems approach to the organization of the preschooler’s “Schema for Alcoholism” suggests that the child’s schema is composed of at least four major components, each of which is interdependently linked. These components are: Sensory-Perceptual (identification and discrimination of substances), Cognitive-Motivational (attributions, beliefs, expectancies), Emotional (self-regulatory processes), and Social (socialization models, relationships, dominance hierarchies/power).