Associate Professor Rowan University Glassboro, New Jersey
Attending undergraduate education is typically characterized by heavy drinking (Rinker et al., 2016). During young adulthood, drinking motives have unique associations with alcohol consumption and alcohol-related consequences (Cooper et al., 2016). Specifically, coping motivation for alcohol use positively predicts alcohol-related consequences over and above one’s alcohol consumption (Cooper et al., 2016). Undergraduates who “mature out” of heavy drinking after graduation also report decreases in coping motivation (Littlefield et al., 2010). On the other hand, after graduation, those who report higher coping motivation have higher levels of drinking-related interpersonal consequences (Shank et al., 2020). In addition, conformity motives have been uniquely associated with more drinking-related deficits in self-care, low self-control, more risky behavior, more academic/occupational concerns, and more drinking to blackout after graduation (Shank et al., 2020). Of note, social and enhancement motives for drinking are not associated with alcohol consumption or alcohol-related consequences in the post-undergraduate years. However, no research exists regarding the associations between drinking motives, alcohol consumption, and specific alcohol-related consequences for graduate students.
We examined how graduate students’ drinking motives are associated with drinks per week and experiences with alcohol-related consequences. Participants included 330 graduate students who were recruited through social media. Participants were 55% female, 72% white, and 38% Latinx with a mean age of 26 years (SD = 3). On average, students drank 8.66 drinks per week (SD = 9.03) and reported 7.64 alcohol-related consequences (SD = 5.77). We ran negative binomial linear regressions to examine the associations between drinking motives and 1) drinks per week, and 2) specific alcohol-related consequence (i.e., interpersonal, self-care, self-control, risky behavior, academic/occupational, and blacking out).
Conformity motives were positively associated with drinks per week and all six alcohol-related consequences except interpersonal consequences. Coping motivation positively predicted low self-control. In addition, enhancement motives positively predicted interpersonal consequences, risky behaviors, and academic/occupational concerns, and negatively predicted drinks per week. Social motives were negatively associated with interpersonal consequences. Our findings are consistent with the notion that associations between drinking motives and alcohol-related consequences may be different for individuals post undergraduate education. This highlights the need to better understand the effects of drinking motives on graduate student drinking, which can help inform future interventions.
