“Here for a good time, not a long time”: Decision-making, future consequences and alcohol use among Northern Irish adolescents

Abstract

A focus group methodology was employed in post-primary (high) schools in Northern Ireland to examine 15-to 16-year-olds' (n = 68) understanding of the consideration of future consequences (CFC) scale (Strathman, A., Gleicher, F., Boninger, D. S., & Edwards, C. S. (1994). The consideration of future consequences: Weighing immediate and distant outcomes of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 742-752) and additionally to examine if and how participants considered the future when making decisions generally and decisions about drinking behaviours more specifically. Results showed that many participants found some items of the CFC scale difficult to understand and reported that having the items explained and contextualised helped in their understanding of them. Most participants reported consideration only of the short-term consequences of behaviours more generally and of alcohol use more specifically. Implications for research of CFC and health promotion messages and interventions among this age group are discussed.

Hour glass half full or half empty? Future time perspective and preoccupation with negative events across the life span.

“…Researchers from different disciplines have developed multi-dimensional measures to distinguish a number of phenomena related to time perspective, including (a) focusing on the future or past versus the present, (b) the ability to delay gratification and consider future consequences, and (c) willingness to sacrifice large rewards in the future for small rewards in the present (e.g., Lasane & Jones, 1999; Mckay, Ballantyne, Goudie, Sumnall, & Cole, 2012; Shipp, Edwards, & Lambert, 2009; Steinberg, Graham, O'Brien, Woolard, Cauffman, & Banich, 2009; Strathman, Gleicher, Boninger, & Edwards, 1994; Worrell, Mello, & Buhl, 2013; Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999; see Löckenhoff, 2011 for a review). Within the adult development and aging literature, future time perspective typically has been measured as unidimensional—ranging from the feeling that time is limited to the feeling that that the future brings unlimited opportunities; e.g., Lang & Carstensen, 2002).…”

A randomised trial of the effect of appearance versus health-framed messages on engagement with an online brief screening and alcohol reduction intervention

“…To date, different message frame variants have been trialled in interventions that aim to reduce alcohol consumption. These include emotion-based message frames invoking shame and guilt (Agrawal & Duhachek, 2010), finding participants are particularly resistant to messages that exacerbate negative emotions, and loss versus gainframed messages (Bernstein, Wood, & Erickson, 2016;de Graaf, van den Putte, & de Bruijn, 2015;Harrington & Kerr, 2017;Hutter, Lawton, Pals, O'Connor, & McEachan, 2014;Mckay, Ballantyne, Goudie, Sumnall, & Cole, 2012), with research showing frame type tends to exert no main effect, but do interact significantly with other psychological variables of interest such as degree of issue of involvement or perceived severity of health risks.…”

“…Framing studies that focus on manipulating the temporal proximity of outcomes are particularly pertinent to alcohol reduction interventions given that the most serious health risks associated with alcohol consumption often take years to accrue, during which time an individual may remain largely asymptomatic (Rehm & Shield, 2014). As a result, it has been argued that highlighting these future and probable health outcomes may not prove the most effective means to motivate immediate behaviour change given reliable evidence that individuals tend to engage in temporal discounting (reducing the value ascribed to more distant outcomes compared to immediate ones) (Beenstock, Adams, & White, 2011;Mckay et al, 2012;Story, Vlaev, Seymour, Darzi, & Dolan, 2014).…”

Alcohol consumption in early adolescence and medical care

“…It is associated with multiple problems: social, behavioral and developmental. 3 It largely increases the risk of alcoholic disorders progression, it favors the occurrence of other risky behaviors and therefore it is a r e a s o n w h y i n t e r v e n t i o n s t o d e l a y c o n s u m p t i o n s h o u l d b e implemented. 4,5 In the Americas, research suggests that children start drinking at the age of ten.…”

“…Four questionnaires were designed: one for adolescents, one for the polyclinic senior staff (director, assistant director of Medical Assistance, Teaching, Hygiene and Epidemiology, and heads of GBT), the third one for education staff (teachers, educational and administrative assistants in selected schools) and the fourth one for parents or guardians ( Annexes 1,2,3,4). These were administered by the author of the study, upon approval from the Municipal Department of Education and Health (Dirección Municipal de Educación y Salud), parents or guardians, and adolescents.…”