Alcohol Consequences and Prediction of Short-term Changes in Drinking Behavior

项目摘要/摘要： 大量饮酒及其相关后果在大学期间很常见，对个人和大学社区都有有害的短期和长期后果。尽管一些大学生主动改变了饮酒习惯，但人们对这种调整是如何发生的，或者学生为什么以及何时决定这样做知之甚少。这些知识可以通过阐明可能使行为改变的可能性最大化的因素来为干预提供信息。数据显示，饮酒带来的负面后果体验是推动变革的重要催化剂之一。然而，对后果的主观反应存在显著的个体差异，因此，这些后果如何引发行为变化也存在差异。社会学习理论(SLT)在这一建议中提供了一个指导理论，主要目的是调查(1)关于所经历的酒精后果的厌恶、消极和严重程度的主观认知评估是否影响个人内部饮酒行为的变化，以及(2)个人水平的变量(过去对酒精后果的经验和规范认知)是否通过这些认知影响饮酒行为的每周一周的改变。第二个目标涉及检验经验确定的后果的严重性与人内行为变化之间的联系。在对个体差异变量进行基线评估后，参与者(N=66名经常饮酒的大学生)将完成每周基于网络的调查，以报告前一周的饮酒情况和24种与酒精相关的后果的经历，以及他们对这些后果的认知评估。数据将收集10周，以提供人内和人与人之间的差异。将这种方法与分层线性建模技术结合使用，将允许随着时间的推移对假设的影响进行细粒度(每周一周)的前瞻性检查。

Project Summary/Abstract: Heavy alcohol use and its associated consequences are common during the college years, and are associated with deleterious short- and long-term outcomes for both the individuals and the college community. Though some college students make self-initiated changes to their drinking, little is known about how such adjustments occur or why and when students decide to make them. Such knowledge could inform intervention, by elucidating factors that might maximize the likelihood of behavior change. Data show that the experience of negative consequences from drinking is one important catalyst for change. Yet, there is significant individual variability in subjective responses to consequences and thus, variability in how such consequences may elicit behavioral change. Social Learning Theory (SLT) provides a guiding theory in this proposal with primary aims to investigate (1) whether subjective cognitive evaluations regarding the aversiveness, negativity, and severity of experienced alcohol consequences influence within-person changes in drinking behavior, and (2) whether individual-level variables (past experience with and normative perceptions of alcohol consequences) influence week-to-week alterations in drinking behavior by way of such cognitions. A secondary aim involves examining the association between empirically established severity of experienced consequences and within-person behavioral change. Following a baseline assessment of individual difference variables, participants (N=66 regularly drinking college students) will complete weekly web-based surveys to report on previous week alcohol use and experience of 24 alcohol-related consequences, as well as their cognitive evaluations of those consequences. Data will be collected for 10 weeks, to provide both within- and between-person variation. Using such methodology in combination with hierarchical linear modeling techniques will allow a fine-grained (week-to-week), prospective examination of the hypothesized effects as they unfold over time.