Adolescents' Sexual Inferences about Girls Who Consume Alcohol

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to document whether adolescents make inferences regarding male and female vignette characters in terms of the characters' sexuality, social skills, impairment, and aggressiveness when the characters consume alcohol. A Web-based survey of 1,691 middle and high school students (grades 6–11) from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds was conducted. The Dating Vignette and Subjective Perception Form ( George, Gournic, & McAfee, 1988 ) were modified for use with an adolescent sample and embedded within the Web-based survey. There were significant interaction effects between the male and female characters' alcohol consumption in terms of the respondents' perception of the female character for all of the subscales examined (i.e., sexual disinhibition, social skills, impairment, and aggressiveness). In contrast, there were no significant interactions between the characters' drinking and the respondents' perception of the male character. Collectively, these findings suggest that adolescents' perceptions of girls are based not only on the girls' own drinking behaviors, but also their male partners' drinking behaviors.