The Angel and the Devil on your shoulder: Friends mitigate and exacerbate 21st birthday alcohol-related consequences.

Abstract

Twenty-first birthdays are associated with heavier drinking and more negative consequences than any other high-risk drinking event. Friends are the strongest social influence on young adult drinking; however, previous research on college students’ drinking has often only examined individuals’ perceptions of “friends” generally. Unfortunately, this may obscure the positive influence of some friends and the negative influence of others. Using data drawn from a larger intervention study aimed at reducing 21st birthday drinking, this research examined how specific friends (N=166) who were present at 21st birthday celebrations may have exacerbated or mitigated celebrants’ (N=166) experience of alcohol-related consequences, as well as how characteristics of that friendship moderate these effects. Controlling for sex, alcohol consumption, and friend pro-intoxication intentions for the celebrants’ 21st birthday drinking, higher friend pro-safety/support intentions predicted the celebrants experiencing fewer alcohol-related consequences. Higher pro-safety/support intentions also buffered participants from the negative influence of friend pro-intoxication intentions. Further, the closeness of the friendship moderated this effect. At high levels of closeness, having a friend with lower pro-safety/support intentions was associated with more alcohol-related consequences for the celebrant. Post-hoc analyses revealed that this effect may have been driven by discrepancies between celebrants’ and friends’ reports of friendship closeness; celebrants’ perception of closeness that was higher than the friends’ perception was associated with the celebrant experiencing more alcohol-related consequences. Results demonstrate the ways that specific friends can both mitigate and exacerbate 21st birthday alcohol-related consequences. The implications of the present findings for incorporating specific friends into drinking-related interventions are discussed.

Drinking contexts and their association with acute alcohol‐related harm: A systematic review of event‐level studies on adults' drinking occasions

“…Students experience more harm, independent of increased consumption, when they drink in larger groups and mixed sex rather than same‐sex pre‐drinking settings . The type of company is generally not a significant predictor, although having close friends who intend to encourage the celebrant to drink alcohol at 21st birthday events (the legal drinking age in the US) is linked to increased harm .…”

“…Aggregate measures of multiple acute harms are the most commonly studied outcome ( n = 30; 32%). These are usually based on a checklist of harms, sometimes adapted from validated scales such as the Young Adult Alcohol Problems Screening Test . Most of these papers study student ( n = 25; 83%) or US ( n = 24; 80%) populations.…”

Combinations of Drinking Occasion Characteristics Associated with Units of Alcohol Consumed among British Adults: An Event‐Level Decision Tree Modeling Study

“…For example, the drinking motivation measures used are not based on a standard validated survey tool such as the Drinking Motives Questionnaire. There were also no measures of drinking companions’ behavior, drinkers’ expectancies, or drinkers’ intentions, which previous studies have linked to consumption in drinking occasions (Fillo et al, 2017; Larsen et al, 2009; Monk and Heim, 2013; Stevens et al, 2017). Furthermore, we have not analyzed factors that are associated with having a drinking occasion in the first place.…”

“…companions' behavior, drinkers' expectancies, or drinkers' intentions, which previous studies have linked to consumption in drinking occasions (Fillo et al, 2017;Larsen et al, 2009;Monk and Heim, 2013;Stevens et al, 2017). Furthermore, we have not analyzed factors that are associated with having a drinking occasion in the first place.…”

Contextual characteristics of adults’ drinking occasions and their association with levels of alcohol consumption and acute alcohol‐related harm: a mapping review

“…In the United Kingdom, drinking in pubs has been associated with violence . In the US college literature, themed parties were associated with increased blood alcohol concentration , and friends’ high safety intentions for 21st birthday celebrations reduced the likelihood of negative alcohol‐related consequences . Researchers in Switzerland and Australia also found that pre‐drinking, drinking with a greater number of friends and drinking in a mixed‐gender group are all associated with increased alcohol consumption during an occasion .…”