NCJ Number
206949
Journal
Substance Use & Misuse Volume: 39 Issue: 7 Dated: June 2004 Pages: 1137-1160
Date Published
June 2004
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This study examined college students’ reasons for not drinking and not playing drinking games.
Abstract
College student's alcohol use, especially heavy episodic or binge drinking is a serious problem on campuses in the United States. There are numerous reasons for examining college students’ rationales for abstaining or limiting their drinking. First, the beliefs of abstainers have the potential to be adopted by those around them. Second, identification of personality styles associated with abstinence may compliment studies identifying personality styles associated with heavy drinkers. Third, measures of reasons for not drinking might be useful in predicting success of interventions, or assessing change in motives or response to treatment or prevention interventions. Finally, theoretical models of drinking motives have included both motives for drinking and motives for not drinking, but most research based on such models has focused only on motives for drinking. Using a sample of 147 college students principal components analysis identified 6 Reasons for Not Drinking factors and 5 Reasons for not Playing Drinking games factors. Internal consistency and intercorrelations of the factors were examined. The factors correlated with measures of alcohol consumption, alcohol outcome expectancies, reasons for drinking, self-esteem, and personality. If stability of the measures used in this study can be established, future studies might be able to employ cluster analytic techniques to identify subgroups of college student nondrinkers and nonplayers. Subtyping nondrinkers and nonplayers might aid in identifying which individuals could benefit from specific types of prevention intervention. Nondrinking students may provide role models for other students. Identifying students’ motives for not playing drinking games may assist in developing effective prevention efforts that could alter norms of behavior regarding use and game participation. Tables, references