Fraternity Parties Research Articles

Reducing excessive alcohol consumption at university fraternity parties: A cost-effective incentive/reward intervention

The impact of an incentive/reward intervention on college students' intoxication from alcohol consumption at fraternity parties was explored using a group-randomized trial. Participants included 702 college students (447 men, 225 women) attending fraternity parties in Blacksburg, VA. Six fraternities were randomly assigned to a control or experimental group, and each of these fraternities hosted two parties. The three fraternities in the experimental group hosted a baseline party first and then hosted an intervention party at which those having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level below 0.05 were entered in a $100 cash lottery. The three fraternities in the control group hosted two control (non-intervention) parties. For the experimental fraternities, mean BAC levels were significantly lower at the intervention parties ( M = 0.079) than the baseline parties ( M = 0.098) and the percentage of partygoers with a BAC below 0.08 was significantly higher at intervention parties (40.1%) than at baseline parties (30.6%). This field study supports the efficacy of differential reinforcement in controlling student intoxication at party settings.

Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader (review)

Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader. Edited by John Morthland. New York: Anchor Books, 2003. [xviii, 409 p. ISBN 0-375-71367-0. $15.]

Intervening to decrease alcohol abuse at university parties: differential reinforcement of intoxication level.

This quasi-experimental field study assessed whether an incentive/reward intervention can change the drinking behavior and the subsequent levels of intoxication among college students attending fraternity parties. A total of 356 blood alcohol concentration (BAC) assessments, using hand-held breathalyzers. were obtained at two baseline and at two intervention parties at the same fratenity house. At the intervention parties, the students were informed they could win a cash prize if their BAC was below .05, and they were given nomograms to aid in monitoring their levels of intoxication. Mean BAC and the percentage of partiers with intoxication levels above .05 were significantly lower at the two intervention parties. More than twice as many partygoers were legally intoxicated (i.e., BAC > .08) at the two baseline parties than at the two intervention parties. indicating a clinically significant impact of the incentive/reward intervention. Greek-life students, in particular, were significantly less intoxicated at intervention parties, compared to baseline parties (p < .001).

A Systematic Assessment of Intoxication at University Parties

Levels of intoxication among university students were assessed at two types of parties: fraternity and private (nonfraternity) parties. Participants' blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels were assessed using hand-held breathalyzers at 19 parties (11 at fraternity houses and 8 at private residences). A total of 1,525 students (502 women and 1,023 men) participated. Results indicated that students were significantly more intoxicated at fraternity parties (mean BAC = .093) than at private parties (mean BAC = .082), and men (mean BAC = .093) were significantly more intoxicated than women (mean BAC = .080). These results support the common belief that parties hosted by fraternity groups set the occasion for the highest levels of intoxication found on college campuses. The failure to find a main effect for Greek-life status suggests the environmental context (i.e., fraternity house) is a critical determinant of excessive alcohol consumption.

IMAGES: Primate Anatomy Lesson

With its beetling brows and jutting face, a gorilla could never pass for human, even at a fraternity party. Yet stripped to the bone, we primates are alike in many ways, such as in the position of the shoulder blades. To help students recognize the underlying similarities and differences among human beings, gorillas, and baboons, anthropologist John Kappelman of the University of Texas, Austin, created the e-Skeletons Project.

Envisioning the Mature Re-Entry Student: Constructing New Identities in the Traditional University Setting

Summary As most students attend university following high school graduation, it is not surprising that the institutional ‘traditional student’ discourse is one of fraternity parties and breaking free of parental control. This discourse infuses university life, and excludes mature students from the vision of those who influence students' academic careers. While educational research provides an ‘adult learner’ discourse, many mature students find that they are not appropriately served by their professors or reference librarians. What may help is an environment which does not presume a need and its solution based on these discourses, but one which treats all students as individuals.

Environmental correlates of underage alcohol use and related problems of college students

Background: Underage alcohol use is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality in adolescents and young adults. This study examined drinking levels and ensuing problems among college students and factors associated with binge drinking. Method: The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study conducted a self-administered survey. The participants include a random sample of 7061 students aged <21 years (defined as underage drinkers), and 4989 between ages 21 and 23 in 1997 at 116 nationally representative 4-year colleges in 39 states. The outcomes of the study include self-reports of alcohol use, binge drinking (defined as five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more for women at least once in a 2-week period), alcohol-related problems, preferred type of drink, access to alcohol, and price paid per drink. Results: Underage students drink less often but have more drinks per occasion, are more likely to drink in private settings (off-campus, dormitory, and fraternity parties), and pay less per drink than do of-age students. Correlates of underage binge drinking include residence in a fraternity or sorority (odds ratio [OR]=6.2), very easy access to alcohol (OR=3.3), obtaining drinks at lower prices (OR=2.1, for under $1 each or a set fee for unlimited drinks), and drinking beer (OR=9.5). Conclusions: Effective controls on price, access, and fraternity and off-campus parties, and reinforcing minimum drinking age laws are needed to reduce the high levels of binge drinking and related health and behavioral problems of underage students.

Misplaced marketing

Comments on the frequent inappropriateness of marketing education. Also addresses some of the inappropriate methods of marketing schools. Considers that certain schools that are unable to attract top students are tempted to misplace marketing by focusing the attention on a school’s “values” other than education, for instance after‐school activities, discipline, or teachers’ concerns for children’s self‐esteem. In college education, these benefits might include a sports team’s winning record, fraternity or sorority parties and local drinking establishments. Finally, expresses dissatisfaction that many students now view graduation as job certification, not as a mark of education.

From the other shore: Russian social democracy after 1921

Part 1 The Menshevik Family: a group portrait a portrait gallery. Part 2 1903-1921: Mensheviks and Bolsheviks - a phenomenology of factions, the second congress and its aftermath, revolutionary rehearsal, after the revolution (1905), into the Great War from exile to exile - war, revolution, facing Bolshevik power, within the party, personal itineraries. Part 3 1921-1933: inside and outside - settling into exile, the political economy of NEP, the nature of NEP Russia, the party underground, watching the Kremlin Mensheviks and the wider world - into the international arena, Menshevik foreign relations, fraternal parties Stalin's revolution - the great turn, socialist debates, the Menshevik trial. Part 4 1933-1965: hard times - life in France, contacts, the totalitarian nexus, purges and politics, search for unity, division and defeat sea change - new roads and old, the last of the Martov line, the end of the foreign delegation, waging the Cold War, the American file, the final campaign conclusion.

BRINGING WOMEN IN, KEEPING WOMEN DOWN

Little sister organizations are groups of women who are affiliated with men's social fraternities on college and university campuses in the United States. This study analyzes the structures and dynamics of these groups with attention to how they reflect, create, and institutionalize gender inequality. The data come from participant observation, open-ended depth interviews, official reports and documents, newspaper articles, and a survey of 110 undergraduates. The authors interviewed 17 women who were little sisters, 7 other students, and 13 campus officials and engaged in participant observation at fraternity parties and little sister events, primarily in five public universities in the Southeast. They conclude that little sister groups encourage women's subordination to, exploitation by, and dependence on, men.

Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914-1948.

From memories of everyday experience, Living vividly recreates life in city during three decades from World War through World War II--a period in which a small, regional capital became a center of industry, education, finance, commerce, and travel. This profusely illustrated volume draws on nearly two hundred interviews with Atlanta residents who recall, in their own words, the way it was--from segregated streetcars to college fraternity parties, from moonshine peddling to visiting performances by Metropolitan Opera, from growth of neighborhoods to religious revivals.The book is based on a celebrated public radio series that was broadcast in 1979-80 and hailed by Studs Terkel as important, exciting project--a truly human portrait of a city of people. Living presents a diverse array of voices--domestics and businessmen, teachers and factory workers, doctors and ballplayers. There are memories of city when it wasn't quite a city: Back in those young days it was country in Atlanta, musician Rosa Lee Carson reflects. It sure was. Why, you could even raise a cow out there in your yard. There are eyewitness accounts of such major events as Great Fire of 1917: The wind blowing that way, it was awful, recalls fire fighter Hugh McDonald. There'd be a big board on fire, and wind would carry that board, and it'd hit another house and start right up on that one. And it just kept spreading. There are glimpses of workday: It's a real job firing an engine, a darn hard job, says railroad man J. R. Spratlin. I was using a scoop and there wasn't no eight hour haul then, there was twelve hours, sometimes sixteen. And there are scenes of city at play: Baseball was popular sport, remembers Arthur Leroy Idlett, who grew up in Pittsburgh neighborhood. Everybody had teams. And people--you could put some kids out there playing baseball, and before you knew a thing, you got a crowd out there, watching kids play.Organizing book around such topics as transportation, health and religion, education, leisure, and politics, authors provide a narrative commentary that places diverse remembrances in social and historical context. Resurfacing throughout book as a central theme are memories of Jim Crow and peculiarities of black-white relations. Accounts of Klan rallies, job and housing discrimination, and poll taxes are here, along with stories about Commission on Interracial Cooperation, early black forays into local politics, and role of city's black colleges.Martin Luther King, Sr., historian Clarence Bacote, former police chief Herbert Jenkins, educator Benjamin Mays, and sociologist Arthur Raper are among those whose recollections are gathered here, but majority of voices are those of ordinary Atlantans, men and women who in these pages relive day-to-day experiences of a half-century ago.

Beer versus mixed-drink consumption at fraternity parties: a time and place for low-alcohol alternatives.

Blood alcohol concentration (BAC) measurements were taken of university students entering and exiting three fraternity parties: during each party, the rates of drinking beer and mixed drinks were monitored. The parties choose beer or mixed drinks to consume exclusively throughout the evening at no cost. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the following conditions were manipulated across successive parties: (1) at the first party (64 males and 43 females) the beer alternative had standard alcohol content (i.e., 7% alcohol by volume), (2) at the second party (70 males and 48 females) the beer was a low-alcohol beer (3% alcohol) and (3) at the third party (53 males and 41 females) the partiers were randomly assigned to a regular alcohol content conditions of beer or mixed drinks or to a low-alcohol content condition (i.e., 3% beer or mixed drinks made with 7/8-oz of distilled spirits). Since those assigned to the low-alcohol conditions did not consume more beverages than those in the regular alcohol conditions, a titration hypothesis was not supported and the exit BACs were significantly lower for partiers in the low-alcohol conditions. When females drank at the same rate as males, their exit BACs were significantly higher than those of males. Implications for DWI prevention are discussed.

KNOWING WHEN TO SAY WHEN: A SIMPLE ASSESSMENT OF ALCOHOL IMPAIRMENT

The use of writing samples as indices of alcohol impairment was explored. Students at a campus fraternity party wrote a sentence and their signatures before and after consuming alcohol (in beer and mixed drinks). Later, undergraduate and graduate students attempted to discriminate between pre- and postparty handwriting samples. The average percentage of correct discriminations of entrance and exit writing samples was 83.7% for sentences and 67.5% for signatures, and the percentage of correct discriminations increased directly with the blood alcohol concentration of the partier who gave the writing sample. When a partier's blood alcohol concentration reached 0.15, all of the judges accurately discriminated 90% or more of the sentences, and 25 of the 28 judges correctly discriminated at least 80% of the signatures. All of the judges correctly discriminated at least 90% of the 18 sentences written by partiers with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.12 or more. Implications of these findings for reducing the risk of driving while intoxicated are discussed, as well as directions for follow-up research.

Environmental Determinants of Party Drinking

In order to examine two environmental conditions as potential determinants of alcohol consumption, university students at a fraternity party (94 males and 84 females) were served beer and mixed drinks by bartenders (bartender condition) or obtained them from a self-service station (self-service condition). The blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of the partiers was assessed when they arrived and when they left the party. Throughout the party, individual rates of obtaining beer and mixed drinks from the bar and self-service station were monitored. Beer drinkers (especially males) assigned randomly to the self-service condition drank beer at higher rates than beer drinkers served by a bartender. In contrast, the partiers (especially males) who chose mixed drinks drank more beverages in the bartender condition than in the self-service condition. This impact of serving mode was interpreted with basic response-cost notions. That is partiers drank more beer when serving themselves because pouring beer from a pitcher to a mug was faster and more convenient than requesting and receiving a beer from a bartender. On the other hand, preparing mixed drinks required some knowledge and inconvenience, and, therefore, the bartenders decreased this response cost and increased the consumption of mixed drinks. The partiers as a whole got more intoxicated than subjects in similar naturalistic studies, and environmental factors are entertained to explain this difference.

Estimating alcohol impairment in the field: implications for drunken driving.

As they left a fraternity party, 93 college-age students were asked to estimate their blood alcohol level (BAL) and to report whether they were legally impaired. They were also asked to report the number of 10-oz cups of beer they had consumed during the party. Actual BALs were tested on a Breathalyzer and the subjects' self-reported number of cups were compared with the cup-by-cup consumption data collected during the party. The results indicated that many subjects were able to report correctly whether they were legally impaired. However, those subjects with higher BALs tended to overestimate their actual BAL while underestimating the number of cups of beer they had consumed. These results are discussed in terms of the ability of individuals to make judgments about their level of impairment. The implications of these results for the prevention of drunken driving are also addressed.

Lenin's Analysis of the Causes of the 1921 Crisis and Ways Out of It

In determining ways to resolve the real and vitally important problems of the development of socialism, the CPSU and fraternal communist parties devote special attention to discovering and overcoming contradictions and mistakes that impede the progress of the socialist countries. The 26th Congress of the CPSU posed the following problems to social scientists: "To analyze the phenomena of the political life of society" more deeply and more boldly, not to shun burning topics, and not to be afraid to "broach the difficult questions … remembering that if we do not confront these questions, those who are hostile to our country will attempt to make use of this to slander socialism."1 The June 1983 Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee also made a plea to combat more resolutely avoidance of the acute problems of life.2 The sociopolitical crises in the development of the socialist countries belongs to this set of issues.

Part 5. The sociopolitical and intellectual development of socialist society

Abstract As real socialism reaches higher and higher stages of maturity, the relationships between the progress of the economy and the sociopolitical and intellectual progress of socialist society become more and more closely knit. A profound theoretical analysis of the processes of development of the class structure of national relations and of the achievements and prospects of the further development of the political system, ways and forms of consolidating material and intellectual foundations of the socialist lifestyle, the formation of the new individual, and the characteristics of ideological, political, and educative work at the present stage is given in documents of the CPSU and the fraternal parties of the countries of the socialist community. These problems are actively being studied by sociologists in the USSR and other countries of the socialist community.1

Communist Revolutionary Violence in the ASEAN States

The 1975 victories of communist in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos seemed to presage the realization of ASEAN's* worst case scenario to the adherents of the domino theory of geostrategy. ASEAN's strategic frontier became the Thai border with Laos and Cambodia and along the disputed overlapping maritime and continental shelf jurisdictions in the South China Sea. A psychological boost was given to the long-embattled people's armies of the communist insurgent movements within the ASEAN states. The capabilities of the now ruling communist parties of Southeast Asia to provide direct assistance to fraternal parties seemed enhanced. Furthermore, the security implications of the Nixon Doctrine appeared more ominous with the American defeat in Vietnam and subsequent drawdown of the American power presence in the region. Today, it is very obvious that the ASEAN dominoes have not been toppled. In fact, with the exception of the Philippines, internal security conditions within the ASEAN states have actually improved

Cooperation in Investments: A Factor in the Intensification of Production in CMEA Member Nations

In this decade CMEA member nations are resolving the most important national economic task of making the transition from extensive to intensive forms and methods of management. Thus the materials of the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU noted: "During the 1980s we should complete the process of setting the economy onto the path of intensification and carry out new measures for further increasing the effectiveness of socialist production … A characteristic feature of the new five-year plan is that it envisages faster growth for final national economic results in comparison with the increase in labor and material outlays, including capital investments. It outlines measures for the more effective use of all existing resources." U) Similar tasks have also been posed at congresses of fraternal parties.

Revolutionary Strategy in Latin America

The Central American revolutions, like the Cuban Revolution a generation earlier, are beginning to have an impact on the strategic thinking of leftist parties throughout the hemisphere and beyond. The Soviet Union and its fraternal parties in Latin America, generally committed to an electoral path to power in coalition with social democrats and other reformist bourgeois forces, were very much taken by surprise when the Sandinistas triumphed over Somoza in 1979—as they had also been surprised by the fall of Batista 20 years before. Because the pro-Moscow parties in EI Salvador and Guatemala are now integral and active participants in the respective revolutionary fronts of their countries, the Central American revolutions portend a quite direct and possibly profound impact on the conventional Communist parties of Latin America. Indeed, there is already evidence of the impact from Mexico to Chile.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.