Intergenerational transmission of drinking motives and how they relate to young adults' alcohol use.

AIMS This study examined whether parental drinking motives are associated with young adults' drinking motives, and their association with young adults' drinking behaviors. METHODS The sample consisted of 290 18-year-old and 289 20-year-old drinking young adults and their parents. RESULTS For the younger group, stronger maternal coping motives were related to stronger social and enhancement motives, while stronger paternal coping motives were associated with stronger young adult coping motives. For the older group, stronger maternal coping motives were related to stronger social motives and stronger paternal enhancement motives were associated with stronger overall young adult drinking motives. For the younger group, both enhancement and conformity motives were predictive of their alcohol use. For the older group, only higher social motives were predictive of higher alcohol use. Both groups' higher coping and enhancement motives were associated with more drinking problems. CONCLUSIONS While, concerning content, there are some differences due to parent gender and adolescent age, stronger parental drinking motives are indeed associated with stronger adolescent drinking motives, which in turn are quite consistently related to more adolescent alcohol use and alcohol-related problems.