Join the Party: Approval-Contingent Self-Worth, Drinking Motives, and Drinking Alone and With Others.

OBJECTIVE: Research links approval-contingent self-worth to college drinking but has not differentiated social and solitary consumption. High approval-contingent self-worth individuals might drink socially to derive approval. METHOD: In a sample of 832 undergraduates, approval-contingent self-worth and drinking motives were measured in an initial questionnaire, and social and solitary consumption were reported daily for 30 days. RESULTS: Results indicated an overall positive association between approval-contingent self-worth and social consumption and positive indirect effects via social and enhancement motivations, but a negative indirect effect via conformity motivation. The association between approval-contingent self-worth and solitary alcohol consumption was nonsignificant because of a negative direct effect counteracted by a positive total indirect effect. CONCLUSIONS: Results highlight the importance of drinking motives and of distinguishing between social and solitary consumption.

Too tired to drink? Daily associations of sleep duration and fatigue with own and others' alcohol consumption.

OBJECTIVE: To better understand how sleep is associated with alcohol consumption among college students, the present study tested whether last night's sleep duration and current day fatigue were associated with being around others who were drinking that night and, if so, with alcohol consumption. METHOD: College student drinkers (N = 540; mean age = 18.78 years; 52% female; 86% White) reported daily for 30 days yearly for up to 4 years on aspects of their sleep, their own alcohol use, and the perceived drinking of others in an intensive longitudinal burst design. RESULTS: Participants were less likely to report that they were with others who were drinking on evenings following higher than average sleep duration or greater than average daytime fatigue. In addition, experiencing greater than average daytime fatigue was associated with a lower likelihood of consuming any alcohol and lower levels of alcohol consumption at the daily level. Thus, daytime fatigue may be protective against alcohol consumption through both selection and behavior moderation. CONCLUSIONS: Results may be useful in the development of interventions to prevent heavy drinking among college students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Thanks for the offer: Testing drink offers as predictors of sexual activity.

Objective: Drink offers are related to increased alcohol consumption, which is linked to sexual activity among college students. However, offers of alcohol may increase the odds of sexual activity that night independent of the amount of alcohol consumed. Participants: 540 undergraduate students were recruited for a longitudinal study of daily experiences. Method: Participants completed up to four annual waves of a measurement burst daily diary study. Using these longitudinal data, we examined whether receiving a drink offer on a given night was related to greater odds of having sex. Results: Receiving a drink offer (but not the number of drinks accepted) is related to greater odds of having sex, controlling for drinking level. Conclusions: Receiving a drink offer is uniquely related to odds of having sex when controlling for the amount of alcohol participants consumed. This may have implications for psychological functioning and relationship development.

COVID-19 in college: Risk perception and planned protective behavior.

Objective: The Theory of Planned Behavior has been applied to COVID-19 protective behaviors, but evidence suggests this theory may be less predictive over time and less valid in individualistic societies. The current study applied this theory among American college students as vaccines became available and added perceived risk. Participants: 242 undergraduate students at two universities. Methods: Participants completed an online survey and analyses were conducted using PROCESS. Results: Perceived risk was indirectly related to protective behavior via intentions which were significantly impacted by positive attitudes, descriptive norms, and perceived behavioral control. Conclusions: Even within an individualistic culture and when vaccines were becoming available, the Theory of Planned Behavior predicts protective behaviors. Including risk perception also furthers understanding of this theory by identifying one factor related to norms and perceived behavioral control. These results may inform the design of interventions designed to increase compliance with pandemic-related policies and other positive behaviors.

Romantic relationship status, stress, and maturing out of problematic drinking.

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the unique influences of romantic relationship status and episodic and chronic stress associated with relationships in predicting changes in alcohol consumption and drinking motivations from college to post-college life. METHOD: Moderate to heavy college student drinkers reported their drinking level and drinking motives using an Internet-based daily diary for 30 days in college and again 5 years later. At the post-college wave, participants also completed a semi-structured phone-based interview to assess romantic relationship stress. RESULTS: Multiple regression analysis indicated that chronic relationship stress and relationship dissolution stress were uniquely related to mean daily levels of post-college drinking to cope (DTC) motivation, but not to mean daily levels of enhancement motivation. Some evidence was found for the effect of relationship status, but not stress, on mean daily heavy drinking levels. We also found evidence that chronic stress moderated the effect of relationship dissolution stress, with individuals showing higher mean daily chronic stress levels displaying a stronger positive association between relationship dissolution and post-college DTC motivation. CONCLUSIONS: Results are discussed in terms of how negative reinforcement processes might be an important mechanism underlying commonly found associations between romantic relationship status and problematic drinking during young adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

To drink or not to drink: When drinking intentions predict alcohol consumption and consequences.

OBJECTIVES: We examined daily associations between drinking intentions and drinking behaviour and tested past drinking behaviour and current social environment as potential moderators of the daily intention-behaviour association. We expected both more frequent past drinking and being in a high drinking environment to weaken the intention-behaviour association. We also tested intentionality as a moderator of the association between alcohol consumption and next-day negative outcomes, expecting that less intentional alcohol consumption would be related to greater stress and regret. DESIGN: We tested these hypotheses using two separate micro-longitudinal studies of college students (Ns = 1,641, 540). METHODS: In two samples, participants completed bursts of data collection in which they indicated their previous alcohol consumption and then completed 30 days of diary surveys in which they reported their alcohol consumption and social environment the previous evening and their levels of stress, regret, and drinking intentions that day. RESULT: Consistent with our predictions, drinking intentions more strongly predicted drinking behaviour among individuals with less frequent past drinking behaviour, and, in Sample 1, drinking intentions more strongly predicted drinking behaviour among individuals in a low drinking environment. Contrary to hypotheses, results indicated that individuals with low drinking intentions were more likely to experience stress the next day, particularly if they consumed less alcohol. Greater consumption, however, was related to greater odds of experiencing regret, but this was stronger among individuals with higher drinking intentions. CONCLUSIONS: Findings are discussed in terms of the complex interplay between intentions and both social environment and contextual factors with respect to predicting drinking level and related problems.

Drink (socially) and be merry: Predicting enjoyment and self-perceptions from alcohol consumption among college students.

Although many college students view drinking as a means of gaining a community and being social, research has not established whether alcohol consumption influences students' enjoyment and perceptions of how others view them or how this may differ based on the social or solitary nature of that consumption. The current study used online daily diary methods to examine the association between alcohol consumption and enjoyment and self-perceptions at the within- and between-person levels of analysis. Results indicated that undergraduate students (N=877; 52% female) enjoyed their evenings more when they consumed more than their typical number of drinks with others, but enjoyed evenings less when they consumed more than their typical number of drinks alone. In addition, consuming greater than their average number of drinks with others (but not alone) was related to feeling more social and attractive but less competent. These findings further highlight the distinct nature of social and solitary drinking and demonstrate positive outcomes of social alcohol consumption that may contribute to college alcohol consumption.

Meet the parents: Parental interactions, social influences, and college drinking.

Previous research suggests that, even in college, parents influence the alcohol consumption of their children directly and indirectly through peers. However, research has not tested whether face-to-face interactions with parents buffer students against social influences on drinking. In the current study, 1168 undergraduate students selected 5 people they contact regularly and then completed a 30-day daily diary reporting on interactions with those people and drinking behavior. The 401 students who selected a parent drank less and less often than those who did not select a parent as a frequent contact. In addition, on evenings when these students had met with their parents, they drank less alcohol and the association between others' drinking and participant drinking was weakened. This adds to evidence suggesting that parents continue to influence emerging adults after they have left home and may be helpful in informing future intervention efforts.

Post-college changes in the association between drinking motives and drinking-related problems.

Evidence suggests that drinking cope (DTC) motivation becomes a greater risk factor for drinking-related problems as individuals progress through young adulthood. To test this, we examined how the effect of DTC motivation on a variety of drinking-related problems, controlling for drinking level, changed as individuals made the transition from college life to post-college life. We also included social, enhancement and conformity motives in our models to examine how their unique effects on drinking-related problems change across this developmental period. College students (N = 939) reported their drinking motives, drinking level, and drinking-related problems during college and again approximately five years later (post-college). Results showed that DTC motivation became a stronger positive predictor for drinking-related interpersonal problems, but none of the other problem types. Conformity motivation became a stronger positive predictor for five out of the six problem types examined and some evidence indicated that social motives become more protective post-college, showing unique negative associations with certain problems. Our findings highlight the need to better understand how the effects of drinking motives on distinct types of drinking-related problems might change as individuals advance through early adulthood.

Affect and alcohol: The moderating role of episode-specific drinking motives.

Findings regarding the moderating influence of drinking motives on the association between affect and alcohol consumption have been inconsistent. The current study extended previous work on this topic by examining episode-specific coping, enhancement, conformity, and social drinking motives as moderators of the association between daytime experiences of positive and negative affect and evening social and solitary alcohol consumption. Nine hundred and six participants completed daily diary surveys measuring their daily affect and evening drinking behavior each day for 30 days during college and again 5 years later, after they had left the college environment. Results of multilevel modeling analyses suggest that the associations between affect, drinking motives, and alcohol consumption are not straightforward. Specifically, whereas daytime positive affect and non-coping drinking motives predicted greater social consumption, daytime positive affect was related to lower solitary alcohol consumption among college students who were low in state social drinking motives. In addition, coping motives were related to greater social consumption during college and greater solitary alcohol consumption after college. Future research should continue to examine these episode-specific drinking motives in addition to trait-level drinking motives.

The new normal: Changes in drinking norms from college to postcollege life.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 34(4) of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors (see record 2020-38542-001). In the article, the description of the prospective sample in the second sentence of the second paragraph and the second sentence of the third paragraph of the Participants section is incorrect. The description should appear, respectively, as follows: These were participants who were contacted if they reported at least one heavy drinking day (≥4 drinks for women and ≥5 drinks for men) in both a 30-day retrospective assessment and a 30-day daily diary reporting phase at Wave 1. . . . Of these, 1,141 were identified as moderate to heavy drinkers. Due to a coding error, 23 of these individuals did not meet these criteria but were contacted for Wave 2. However, all of these individuals reported drinking levels at Wave 1 (using a drinking composite comprised of standardized retrospective and daily diary drinking variables) within the range of values for the individuals who met the correct criteria. All were retained for analysis and 906 (79%) completed at least 15 days of recording in Wave 2.²] Despite the wealth of research on the effects of drinking norms on college students' alcohol consumption, researchers have not yet examined changes in drinking norms and their association with drinking level after students leave the college environment. The current study filled this gap by following students into postcollege life, measuring drinking norms and daily drinking behavior. College students (N = 1,848) were recruited to take part in a daily diary study measuring social and solitary alcohol consumption, and 1,142 moderate to heavy drinkers from the college cohort were invited to complete a second wave of daily diaries 5 years later, with 906 providing at least 15 days of diary data in each wave. Results of multilevel modeling analyses suggest that family injunctive drinking norms become more strongly related to alcohol consumption after individuals leave college. In contrast, institutional injunctive norms may have a greater limiting effect among college students (i.e., the association was greater among college students) and the relations between friend injunctive and descriptive norms to drinking behavior did not change between waves in the current study. This suggests that friend drinking continues to be related to own drinking behavior among adults after leaving the college environment, and highlights the changing importance of institutional norms and family approval. These results may have implications for intervening in young adults' heavy drinking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Cheers to Equality! Both Hostile and Benevolent Sexism Predict Increases in College Women's Alcohol Consumption.

Based on research suggesting that alcohol consumption can be used as a means of coping with negative affect (Cooper, Frone, Russell, & Mudar, 1995), the current study examines sexism as a factor in college women's alcohol consumption. Despite being more prevalent than hostile sexism, benevolent sexism is often viewed as less sexist (Oswald, Baalbaki, & Kirkman, 2018) and having a less aversive impact on women (Bosson, Pinel, & Vandello, 2010). To increase understanding of the negative effects of both hostile and benevolent sexism, the current study experimentally manipulated sexism during a lab session and measured 176 U.S. college women's actual alcohol consumption that evening. As predicted, college women who experienced either the hostile or the benevolent sexism condition reported consuming a greater number of alcoholic drinks, and those in the hostile sexism condition were more likely to meet the binge drinking threshold than participants in the control condition. This pattern suggests the importance of examining the unique effects of benevolent sexism in addition to hostile sexism because both may influence women's behavior even in important health domains. Given the many negative consequences associated with alcohol consumption, our results provide evidence for education on healthy coping mechanisms and interventions to reduce both hostile and benevolent sexism.

Needs and Norms: Testing the Effects of Negative Interpersonal Interactions, the Need to Belong, and Perceived Norms on Alcohol Consumption.

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined whether individual differences in the need to belong and perceived drinking norms (both injunctive and descriptive) moderate the effects of daily negative interpersonal interactions on college students' evening alcohol consumption. METHOD: A total of 212 (123 female) college students completed a background survey measuring their need to belong and perceptions of injunctive and descriptive drinking norms. They then completed a 30-day daily-diary study in which they reported on their daily interpersonal experiences and alcohol consumption. RESULTS: Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that, among students higher in the need to belong, daily negative interpersonal interactions during the day were associated with drinking behavior that evening that was more in line with perceived injunctive norms (i.e., perceptions of how much peers approve of drinking) when perceived descriptive norms were controlled for. This was not found for students lower in the need to belong. In contrast, descriptive norms (i.e., perceptions of how much peers drink) did not moderate the effects of daily negative interpersonal interactions on evening alcohol consumption when injunctive norms were controlled for. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that unmet belongingness needs motivate students to regulate drinking behavior to be in accordance with what they perceive as most approved of by their peers. That is, students may not drink solely to reduce negative affect but to fit in and gain approval.