Department of Psychology.
Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences & Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, School of Public Health, Brown University.
Psychol Addict Behav. 2018 Jun;32(4):456-465. doi: 10.1037/adb0000374. Epub 2018 Jun 4.
Level of drinking in the social network is strongly associated with college students' alcohol use. However, mechanisms through which networks are associated with personal drinking have been underexplored thus far. The present study examined theoretically derived constructs-sociability outcome expectancies, attitudes toward heavy drinking, self-efficacy for use of protective strategies, and descriptive norms-as potential mediators of the association between egocentric social network drinking and personal consumption. College students (N = 274) self-reported their social network's level of alcohol consumption, all mediators, drinks per week, and consequences at both baseline (Time 1) and a 1-month follow-up (Time 2). Autoregressive mediation models focused on the longitudinal associations between Time 1 network drinking and the Time 2 mediators and between the Time 1 mediators and the Time 2 outcomes. Consistent with hypotheses, Time 1 social network drinking was significantly associated with Time 2 drinks per week and consequences. Only attitudes significantly mediated social network associations with drinks per week and consequences, though the proportion of the total effects accounted for by attitudes was small. After accounting for the stability of constructs over time, social network drinking was generally un- or weakly related to sociability expectancies, self-efficacy, and descriptive norms. Results support reducing attitudes toward heavy drinking as a potential avenue for mitigating network effects, but also highlight the need to evaluate additional potential mechanisms of network effects. Intervention efforts that aim to address the social network have the potential to substantially reduce alcohol consumption, thereby enhancing the overall efficacy of alcohol risk-reduction interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record
社交网络中的饮酒水平与大学生饮酒行为密切相关。然而，到目前为止，网络与个人饮酒之间的关联机制还没有得到充分的探索。本研究检验了理论上推导出来的结构——社交性结果预期、对豪饮的态度、使用保护策略的自我效能感和描述性规范——作为以自我为中心的社交网络饮酒与个人消费之间关联的潜在中介。大学生（N=274）自我报告了他们的社交网络的饮酒水平、所有的中介、每周饮酒量以及在基线（第 1 时间点）和 1 个月随访（第 2 时间点）时的后果。自回归中介模型侧重于第 1 时间点网络饮酒与第 2 时间点中介以及第 1 时间点中介与第 2 时间点结果之间的纵向关联。与假设一致，第 1 时间点的社交网络饮酒与第 2 时间点的每周饮酒量和后果显著相关。只有态度显著中介了社交网络与每周饮酒量和后果之间的关系，尽管态度解释的总效应比例很小。在考虑到结构在时间上的稳定性之后，社交网络饮酒与社交性期望、自我效能感和描述性规范普遍没有关联或关联较弱。研究结果支持减少对豪饮的态度作为减轻网络效应的潜在途径，但也突出了需要评估网络效应的其他潜在机制。旨在解决社交网络问题的干预措施有可能大大减少饮酒量，从而提高酒精减少风险干预措施的整体效果。
