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Article Excerpt
BECAUSE OF THE HIGH PREVALENCE and consequences of heavy drinking among college students (e.g., Johnston et al., 2005; Perkins, 2002), identifying situational factors that promote excessive alcohol use, as well as those most vulnerable to these influences, is of critical theoretical and practical import. Heavy episodic alcohol use and negative consequences are higher among students who are male (O'Malley and Johnston, 2002), who are fraternity or sorority members (Alva, 1998; Meilman et al., 1999), and who have more positive alcohol expectancies (Goldman, 1994) as well as during certain events such as spring break (SB) or holidays (Del Boca et al., 2004).
Niche selection theory predicts that individuals shape their experiences by selecting environments and activities consistent with their personality and personal goals (Scarr and McCartney, 1983). For example, some students choose to use their SB vacation to travel with the intent to engage in extreme party behaviors, including excessive drinking. A large number of college students go on SB trips to beach destinations each year, such as Panama City, FL, and Cancun, Mexico (Hobson and Josiam, 1996). Risky alcohol and other drug use, sexual behavior, and illegal activities during SB trips are of great concern to national and local governments, public health officials, and student affairs professionals. Although convenience surveys at SB destinations document heavy alcohol use (Josiam et al., 1998; Smeaton et al., 1998), the extent to which such behaviors are more risky and extreme than students' usual behavior remains unclear. It is possible that students with heavy-drinking lifestyles are drawn to such vacation spots, where they continue their typical risky behaviors with a new set of similar thrill-seeking partners.
To assess the impact of SB as a situational risk factor, it is essential to collect data from the same students across a semester, ideally before, during, and after SB. Such a design would indicate whether alcohol use increases during SB, whether such increases are dependent on going on a SB trip or rather solely on having additional leisure time, and whether particular types of students are at greater risk for escalations. Recent research by Del Boca and colleagues (Del Boca et al., 2004; Greenbaum et al., 2005), following first-year college students over approximately 8 months, suggests a spike in drinking during SB week for most students. When examining different trajectories in drinking across the year, five different trajectories emerged. Four of five groups increased their drinking during holidays and SB, including a group considered to be light-stable across the year (Greenbaum et al., 2005); however, this study did not examine the influence of SB trips. The present study specifically examines SB drinking and the association of SB trips with drinking using a within-person design. We hypothesized that (1) going on a SB trip would be a situational risk factor for increased drinking and (2) known heavy drinking correlates (gender, fraternity/sorority status, positive fun-social expectancies) would predict heavier drinking during both regular academic weeks and SB week.
Method
Sample and procedure
The design was a two-part longitudinal study of emerging adults during the summer before and the first year of college. Participants in the present study were selected from 943 (98% completion rate) first-year university students who completed a survey during 11 summer orientation sessions held before their first year in college (Phase 1). To be eligible for participation in the longitudinal project...
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