Celebration Drinking and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Alcohol Misperceptions

Purpose: Heavy alcohol consumption on college campuses, and its negative consequences, constitutes one of the more persistent and challenging problems confronting institutions of higher education. For the purpose of this study, episodic drinking is measured as the amount of drinks consumed on one occasion. Celebratory drinking is the consumption of alcohol while in celebration of an event or holiday. Typical drinking is the consumption of alcohol while not engaged in celebration of an event or holiday. The primary purpose of the study was to determine whether students consume alcohol in greater quantities when drinking in celebration of an event or holiday versus typical weekend and weekday drinking tendencies. Celebratory occasions include football tailgating, holidays, rush, and the beginning and ending of academic semesters. Methods: Eight-hundred participants were randomly selected to participate in the study. A stratified random sample was drawn according to class rank and sex. Participants were traditional undergraduates, aged 18-24, who attended college full time in the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008. The responding sample was 287 students with a resulting usable sample of 214 students. The administration protocol for the web-based survey included an initial email sent to potential participants. Participants then received an invitation email containing the survey link. Appropriate follow-up procedures for non-respondents were utilized. Analysis/Results: Descriptive statistics were used to exemplify the sample characteristics and Wilcoxon sign test was used to test the hypotheses. The resulting sample reflects the University population. The results show that the quantity of alcohol consumed during celebration drinking is greater than typical weekday drinking and less than typical weekend drinking. Furthermore, students overestimate the quantity of alcohol consumed by other students during typical weekend and weekday drinking episodes, as well as during celebration events. Students also overestimate the number of nights other students consume alcohol during both the weekdays and weekends. Conclusions: These results confirm there is a misperception of alcohol consumption among college students in regards to other students. The authors hypothesized, the quantity of alcohol consumed during celebration events would be greater than both weekday and weekend typical drinking episodes. Based on these results, celebration drinking is greater than typical weekday drinking. However, we found that typical weekend drinking is greater than celebration drinking. These results will help health educators develop event specific prevention strategies to reduce existing misperceptions and correct the social norm among college students regarding alcohol consumption.