Abstract
In both developing and underdeveloped countries there has been a worrying increase in the number of young people drinking alcohol; this public health problem warrants more research. This multilevel study analyzed the influence of drinking refusal self-efficacy, peers’ motivation, and protective behavioral strategies as predictors of alcohol consumption in a sample of 261 young people arranged into 52 social groups (peers who regularly shared leisure activities). A series of questionnaires were administered individually to evaluate beliefs and behaviors related to alcohol consumption at both individual level (drinking refusal self-efficacy) and peer level (enhancement motivation and protective behavioral strategies). The results showed that the individual variable (drinking refusal self-efficacy) predicted alcohol consumption behaviors. The multilevel design allowed us to evaluate the direct and moderated effects of peers’ enhancement motivation and protective behavioral strategies on the relationship between self-efficacy and drinking behavior. These results show the importance of developing cognitive, behavioral, and educational intervention programs to increase young people and university students’ confidence and ability to use protective strategies, in order to reduce alcohol use.
Highlights
Drinking alcohol is an accepted social and cultural habit in most Western countries
Various studies have shown that young people who deploy protective behavioral strategies when drinking suffer fewer consequences than those who do not [29,30]
Regarding the cross-level interaction posited in Hypothesis 4, our results showed that drinking refusal self-efficacy was negatively related to alcohol consumption and that this association was stronger in individuals whose peer group made frequent use of protective behavioral strategies
Summary
Department of Social Psychology, Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y León—INCYL, University of Salamanca, 37007 Salamanca, Spain Department of Psychology, Instituto Maimónides de Investigación Biomédica—IMIBIC, University of Córdoba, 14079 Córdoba, Spain
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