The Social and Psychological Antecedents of Binge Drinking in a Student Population

Binge drinking has been identified as common place among student populations and due to its association with a number of negative consequences is generally considered to be problematic. This thesis adopts a mixed methods approach to the study of the binge drinking behaviour of undergraduate students at an English university, employing focus groups (N=6 groups), cross-sectional and prospective questionnaires (N= 117 and N= 300 respectively) to explore the antecedents of students’ alcohol use and binge drinking. The findings of the qualitative work demonstrate that students consider binge drinking to be drinking to get drunk and identify student drinking behaviour as highly social. A number of key alcohol related expectancies that may be perpetuating high alcohol use in this population also emerge from the data. These are interpreted as indicating that the application of social cognitive models to the study of these behaviours is appropriate. The quantitative studies support the application of the TPB to the prediction of student binge drinking behaviour showing that it accounts for between 51 and 63.3% of the variance in students’ intentions to binge drink and 34.7% of the variance in students’ self-reported binge drinking behaviour. However a number of expansions the TPB are shown to be effective with expanded models accounting for 69.6% of the variance in intentions to binge drink and 51.5% of the variance in self-reported binge drinking behaviour. Implications for further research, including replications of the suggested expanded model are discussed and potential applications to future intervention and prevention works are presented.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of East Anglia

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Lynch, Ellen

Language dc:language

en