Newswise — College students’ attitudes about their own drinking predict how much they will drink, how many alcohol-related consequences they will experience, and their odds of experiencing blackouts. A study published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research found that when students considered drinking heavily to be positive, they tended to drink considerably more. However, when they felt limiting their drinking to a moderate number of drinks would be enjoyable and beneficial, they experienced fewer blackouts and other harmful consequences. The study authors suggest that new strategies that address students’ attitudes about moderate versus heavy drinking could be effective in preventing students from harm related to alcohol use.
To understand how different individual and social factors influenced students’ drinking, researchers engaged 500 students at a university in the northeastern United States. The students, aged 18 to 24, had been mandated to participate in a single-session alcohol intervention program for a first-time violation of campus alcohol policies and were then followed for one year after the intervention. Students were evaluated at baseline and one, three, six, nine, and 12 months regarding their drinking behaviors and experiences, their attitudes about moderate and heavy drinking at those time points, and how much they intended to drink in the subsequent month. They were asked, for example, how enjoyable, wise, and beneficial they felt it would be to limit their drinking to what is considered moderate drinking and how they feel about drinking more heavily. Moderate drinking for adults is three drinks for women and four drinks for men; heavy drinking is four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men.
Students’ attitudes about drinking changed over time and influenced how much they drank. For every one-unit increase in their own average measure of favorable attitudes toward drinking moderately instead of heavily, the odds of experiencing a blackout dropped by 20 percent, and the number of other alcohol-related consequences decreased by 10 percent. On the other hand, for every one-unit increase in favorable attitudes toward heavy drinking, the number of drinks they consumed and their likelihood of experiencing a blackout increased by 25 percent and 30 percent, respectively.
Students’ perceptions about their peers’ drinking influenced their drinking. Those who believed their peers drank more heavily reported drinking more themselves than those who believed their peers drank less. Specifically, students drank 20 percent more drinks per week for each additional drink they perceived their peers to drink. Students whose attitudes about heavy drinking were more positive drank more than those whose attitudes were less favorable. For every one-unit increase in favorable attitude toward heavy drinking, they drank 50 percent more drinks and experienced 30 percent more alcohol-related consequences.
Most interventions for problem alcohol use focus on correcting perceptions of how much peers drink. While this study found perceptions of peer behavior influenced individuals’ own behavior, it also identified another important target for interventions to prevent alcohol-related harm: students’ attitudes and beliefs about their drinking. More studies are needed to determine whether these findings will be applicable to a more diverse population of students and those not mandated to participate in the intervention.
Longitudinal analysis for between- and within-person influences of descriptive alcohol drinking norms and attitudes on drinking outcomes. A. DiBello, M.B. Miller, M.R. Hatch, N. Mastroleo, K. Carey.
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