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Positive experiences play an important role in buffering the effects of negative experiences. Although this process can play out in a myriad of contexts, the college context is one of particular importance because of significant concerns about student stress levels and alcohol abuse. Building on evidence that at least some students drink in response to negative experiences, we considered the possibility that positive moods would moderate college student negative mood--drinking relationships. Using a Web-based daily process study of 118 (57% women) undergraduate student drinkers, the authors reveal that positive moods indeed buffer the effects of negative moods on student drinking, depending on the mood and drinking context. Furthermore, the buffering of ashamed mood appears to explain the buffering of other negative moods. Implications of these findings are considered in terms of the relationship between negative self-awareness and drinking to cope. Keywords: alcohol consumption; college student drinking; positive moods; shame; buffering

The authors examined the association between alcohol consumption and aggression from a personality trait perspective with 92 self-identified Hispanic college students. They partially replicated a study by Quigley, Corbett, and Tedeshi, which examined the relationships between desired image of power, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol-related aggression. Among male participants, impulsivity did not correlate with either alcohol consumption or frequency of fighting, whereas with females there was a strong positive correlation between impulsivity and alcohol consumption and a weak positive correlation between impulsivity and frequency of fighting. When the results were compared to those of Quigley et al., it was found that the Hispanic participants drank and fought less. The best predictor variable for male alcohol consumption was the desire to be viewed as 'tough.' 'Activity' was the primary predictor for female alcohol consumption. Keywords: alcohol consumption; aggression; personality traits; Hispanic college students

To explore the relationship between alcohol problems and physical violence with partners and strangers, 457 college men and 958 college women with low, intermediate, or high scores on the Short Michigan Alcohol Screening Test reported conflict tactics on the Conflict Tactics Scale in the past year to and by partners and strangers. More men than women had high alcohol problems scores. Men with alcohol problems were more likely than other men to commit violence toward strangers or to partners and strangers. However, men with alcohol problems were not more likely than other men to commit violence toward partners only. Among women, alcohol problems had little relationship to committing violence or being the victim of violence. Keywords: alcohol; partner violence; stranger violence; general violence

Researchers have suggested that intoxicated perpetrators may act more violently than other perpetrators, although empirical findings have been mixed. Past research has focused on whether or not alcohol was consumed, rather than the quantity consumed, and this may explain these inconsistent findings. The authors hypothesized that the quantity of alcohol consumed would have a curvilinear relationship to the severity of the assault. Data were collected from 113 college men who reported that they had committed a sexual assault since the age of 14. The quantity of alcohol that perpetrators consumed during the assault was linearly related to how much aggression they used and was curvilinearly related to the type of sexual assault committed. The quantity of alcohol that victims consumed during the assault was linearly related to the type of sexual assault committed. Strategies for improving assessment of alcohol consumption in sexual assault research are discussed. Keywords: sexual assault; alcohol; perpetration; college students

Episodes of husband-to-wife violence in which the husband consumed alcohol were compared with episodes of husband-to-wife violence, reported by the same individuals, in which the husband was not drinking. Among this community sample of newlyweds, wife reports, but not husband reports, indicated that violent episodes in which the husband was drinking included more acts of violence and were more likely to involve severe violence. Both wife and husband reports indicated that wives were more likely to be physically aggressive in husband drinking episodes compared to sober episodes. However, whereas wives reported that their aggressive behavior was a response to husband aggression, husbands reported that wives were more likely to initiate violence in these episodes. Violent episodes that include alcohol may be more severe and more mutually violent than sober episodes. Discrepancies between husband and wife reports may reflect differences in recall or self-serving biases. Keywords: family violence; alcohol drinking patterns; marital conflict; aggressive behavior; alcohol abuse

Alcohol myopia theory and relational framing theory were used to explain how alcohol consumption affects perceptions of sexual scenarios. In a within-subjects design, participants (N = 51) evaluated scenarios that emphasized consensual cues only and scenarios with consensual and nonconsensual sexual behaviors (mixed cues). Participants read both scenario types at three blood alcohol levels (.00, .04, and .08 g/dl). Participants viewed affiliation judgments as significantly more relevant than dominance judgements when evaluating the consensual scenarios, regardless of their level of alcohol consumption. For the mixed cues scenarios, participants did not view either dimension as more relevant when sober; when drinking, they viewed dominance judgments as more relevant. As alcohol consumption increased, women were more likely to report that they would act like the female in both scenario types, whereas men were more likely to act like the male in the consensual scenario only.

Male and female undergraduates (N = 316) completed affective, cognitive, and global evaluations of alcohol and marijuana use. The discriminant validity of the attitude components was supported. As predicted, relationships between global attitude and the affective component varied across use experience groups; for both drugs, the affective component was more related to the global scale among the most experienced users. Attitude components predicted current marijuana use in a manner that was consistent with the analyses of attitude structure. However, the affective and cognitive attitude scales were relatively poor predictors of current alcohol use, suggesting that additional information may contribute to global attitude for alcohol use. Thus, similarities on attitude structure emerged across drugs, but the ability of the attitude components to predict use behavior differentiated the drug types., Recent theory and research suggests that a structural analysis of attitudes may enhance prediction of some behaviors (Ajzen & Driver, 1991; Breckler & Wiggins, 1989; Millar & Tesser, 1989). Research [...]

Four studies tested the hypothesis that alcohol decreases the likelihood of condom use during casual sex. First, in a correlational study, it was found that among men who reported that they usually use condoms, those who were intoxicated when they last had intercourse were less likely than sober men to have used one. Further, in two laboratory experiments and one field experiment, intoxicated people reported more positive intentions to have unprotected sex than sober people. These results are consistent with alcohol myopia as introduced by Steele and associates - the notion that alcohol decreases cognitive capacity, such that intoxicated people are more likely to attend to the most salient cues in a situation. Intoxicated people may focus on the perceived benefits of having intercourse rather than on the negative consequences of not using condoms. These studies provide strong evidence that alcohol causes a decrease in condom use and suggest a mechanism for that relationship.

In order to examine two environmental conditions as potential determinants of alcohol consumption, university students at a fraternity party (94 males and 84 females) were served beer and mixed drinks by bartenders (bartender condition) or obtained them from a self-service station (self-service condition). The blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of the partiers was assessed when they arrived and when they left the party. Throughout the party, individual rates of obtaining beer and mixed drinks from the bar and self-service station were monitored. Beer drinkers (especially males) assigned randomly to the self-service condition drank beer at higher rates than beer drinkers served by a bartender. In contrast, the partiers (especially males) who chose mixed drinks drank more beverages in the bartender condition than in the self-service condition. This impact of serving mode was interpreted with basic response-cost notions. That is partiers drank more beer when serving themselves because pouring beer from a pitcher to a mug was faster and more convenient than requesting and receiving a beer from a bartender. On the other hand, preparing mixed drinks required some knowledge and inconvenience, and, therefore, the bartenders decreased this response cost and increased the consumption of mixed drinks. The partiers as a whole got more intoxicated than subjects in similar naturalistic studies, and environmental factors are entertained to explain this difference.

This article presents the results of a confirmatory factor analysis expanding and enhancing a previously developed measure of 'machismo' both to explore the dimensionality of the measure and to test the invariance of factor structure in a sample of Anglo, African American, and Mexican American adult male drinkers. Specifically, this article (a) describes the development of a multidimensional 13-item machismo measure, (b) tests the goodness of fit of a series of confirmatory factor models examining single versus multiple factor solutions (e.g., Does a unitary machismo factor fit, or must positive and negative dimensions be modeled?), and (c) tests the invariance of the resulting model across racial-ethnic groups. Results support the use of the measures for cross-ethnic studies and emphasize the importance of a multidimensional measure including both positive and negative dimensions.

Research has shown that men with alcohol problems have higher rates of violence against their wives and that they tend to inflict more frequent and injurious assaults than men who do not abuse alcohol. The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of alcohol abuse as a predictive factor in cases of wife assault relative to other sociodemographic and attitudinal factors using a nationally representative survey on violence against women conducted in Canada in 1993. The results show that heavy drinking predicts violence against wives in zero-order analysis and remains significant when the effects of class, age, and type of relationship are factored out. However, once proxy measures of attitudes about the rightness of male degradation and control of women are factored out, alcohol abuse is rendered nonsignificant. These findings have important implications for interventions and treatment of male batterers.

This study investigated whether the relation between alcohol outcome expectancies and alcohol use may be moderated by individual differences in private self-consciousness (PSC). Quantity/ frequency of alcohol use, expectancies, and PSC in a sample of young adults were assessed annually over 4 years. Regression equations were used to predict alcohol use from expectancies, PSC, and their interaction while controlling for sex and family history of alcoholism. High PSC was associated with a stronger association between expectancies and alcohol use than was low PSC, although only in participants of legal drinking age. Also, PSC was negatively associated with alcohol use for underage participants when expectancies were statistically controlled, consistent with previous work linking PSC to adherence to legal proscriptions. Findings are discussed in relation to a model of expectancy accessibility.

This study examines mental health and behavioral sequela of heavy drinking in adolescence among Mexican American adults between 18 and 59 years of age. Previous research with U.S. population samples has shown that role performance and role transitions in adulthood are impaired by adolescent substance abuse problems. To test this hypothesis, data from the Mexican American Prevalence and Services Survey were used. Using bivariate and multivariate analyses, early adolescent heavy drinkers were compared with adult heavy drinkers, light to moderate drinkers, and abstainers on various outcomes. Outcomes included DSM-III-R mood, anxiety, and drug abuse or dependence assessed by the Composite International Diagnostic Interview in a probability sample of 3,000 adults in Fresno, California. Whereas adolescent heavy drinkers had higher lifetime mood and drug abuse or dependence disorders, and higher rates of suicide attempts and behavior problems than abstainers or moderate drinkers, adult heavy drinkers also had high rates of mood disorders and arrests in bivariate comparisons. In multivariate contrasts, adolescent heavy drinkers were three times more likely to have lifetime drug abuse or dependence diagnoses than the other subgroups and were twice as likely to have attempted suicide. Implications for preventive interventions in the Mexican American population are discussed.

Alcohol is associated with risk of sexual assault among women and with increased risk of experiencing completed rape once attacked. In particular, alcohol use prior to sexual assault by both offenders and victims may affect the severity of sexual victimization experienced by women. Little research has explored the mechanisms (e.g., social context, behavior) through which alcohol may affect outcomes of sexual attacks using multivariate analysis. This study analyzed the role of alcohol in sexual assaults experienced by a national sample of female college students. A hierarchical multivariate regression showed that victim alcohol abuse propensity and both victim and offender alcohol use prior to attack were directly associated with more severe sexual victimization to women as measured by the Sexual Experiences Survey. This study suggests that alcohol use plays both direct and indirect roles in the outcomes of sexual assaults. Rape and alcohol abuse prevention efforts can benefit from incorporating information about alcohol's role in different assault contexts.