Corinne Bohnel

English 015 – Rhetoric and Composition

Professor De Piero
5 December 2018
Annotated Bibliographies

How is the consumption of alcohol in college students related to social behaviors and influences?

Helge Giese, F. Marijn Stok, Britta Renner, (2017). The Role of Friendship Reciprocity in
University Freshmen’s Alcohol Consumption, Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 9, 2,
228-241.
Giese, Stok, and Renner (2017) describe college as the time “during which adolescents
find themselves in a new social setting and independent from their parents” (p. 228). Their
research method consisted of freshmen during their first semester at college who indicated
“weekly drinking frequency” and they found that this amount of alcohol consumption was
associated with peer groups (p. 228). As popularly assumed, Giese, Stok, and Renner argue that
“alcohol consumption is used strategically for social purposes” (p. 228). This scholarly article
emphasizes the importance of friendship and how it has an effect on alcohol consumption.

Patrick Klaiber, Ashley V. Whillans, Frances S. Chen, (2018). Long-Term Health Implications
of Student’s Friendship Formation during the Transition to University, Applied Psychology:
Health and Well-Being, 10, 2, 290-308.
This article is focused on the support system shift from family to mostly friends during
the transition to college. Just like parents who often play the role model for their children,
Klaiber, Whillans, and Chen explain “if a person observes others making healthy choices, he or
she may be more likely to follow their example” (p. 291). This statement includes college
students choosing to do what their peers are doing, not only to fit in, but just to feel “in place”.
Klaiber, Whillans, and Chen argue that “self-reported health is strongly related to objective
physical health parameters, ratings by healthcare professionals (Garratt, Ruta, Abdalla,
Buckingham, & Russell, 1993), and is a powerful predictor of mortality” (p. 302). Their study
reflects that healthy behaviors and health in general is significantly correlated with college
students friendships.

Moure-Rodriguez L, Carbia C, Lopez-Caneda E, Corral Varela M, Cadaveira F, Caamaño-Isorna

F, (2018). Trends in alcohol use among young people according to the pattern of consumption on
starting university: A 9-year follow-up study. PLoS ONE, 13(4).

In this research article, Moure-Rodriguez L, Carbia C, Lopez-Caneda E, Corral Varela M,

Cadaveira F, and Caamaño-Isorna F primarily hope to “identify differences in Risky
Consumption (RC) and Binge drinking (BD) trends in students who already followed these
patterns of alcohol consumption on starting university and those who did not” (p. 1). During their
research, they found that “the rates of prevalence of both Risky consumption (RC) and Binge
drinking (BD) at age 27 years were much greater among university students who already
followed these consumption patterns at age 18 years” (p. 5). They argue that the students who
start drinking at an earlier age are more likely to have more consumption patterns compared to
the people who do not.

Vaughan, E. L., Corbin, W. R., & Fromme, K. (2009). Academic and social motives and
drinking behavior. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 23(4), 564-576.
Vaughan, Corbin, and Fromme indicate that “The transition from high school to college is
marked by significant increases in heavy alcohol use” (p. 564). They mention the primary reason
student are attending college in the first place: to obtain a college degree. Vaughan, Corbin, and
Fromme argue that students who are less academically motivated and spend less time studying
are “more likely to be binge drinkers” (p. 564). They claim that additional studies have shown an
inverse relationship between students grade point average and alcohol intake. For social
outcomes, their studies indicate that “more social motivations and behaviors predicted greater
alcohol problems” (p. 573). At the end of the study, they conclude that social motives and
behaviors were consistently associated with overall alcohol use.

W. Corbin, D. K. Iwamoto, K. Fromme (2010). Broad social motives, alcohol use, and related
problems: Mechanisms of risk from high school through college. Addictive Behaviors, 36 (2011),
pp. 222-230.

Corbin, Iwamoto, and Fromme claim that there are a number of “well-established social-
cognitive influences” that might mediate the influence of social motives (p. 223). These social
motives may include alcohol expectancies, drinking values, and descriptive norms. Corbin,
Iwamoto, and Fromme also argue that “if one strongly values broad engagement in social
activities, the potential of drinking to ease or improve social interactions should be particularly
appealing” (p. 223). The study was conducted over a wide range of students and because the
results didn’t vary, the researchers can conclude that this applies to most college students in
similar environments, meaning dorm life and living completely on their own. Because alcohol
use is known as “accepted and valued,” among most college students, strong social motives
suggest to influence college students to “fit in” and socialize in this manner with their peers (p.
227).