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Abstract
College students exhibit high levels of heavy drinking that are often associated with negative consequences, including unsafe sexual activity, injury, and legal trouble. The fact that students continue to drink despite these outcomes suggests they experience salient positive consequences. A known risk factor of drinking is the personality trait sensation seeking (SS), which may influence how a person interprets alcohol-related consequences and ultimately result in increased alcohol consumption. In this study, we examined the relations between SS, positive and negative consequences, and drinking among college students. Participants were 206 undergraduates who reported recent heavy drinking (53% female, 65% white, and 26% African-American). Students with higher levels of SS reported drinking more and also indicated experiencing more positive consequences as a result of their drinking than participants with lower levels of SS. This relation between SS and drinking was mediated by positive consequences, suggesting that one reason why students with higher levels of SS drink more than other students is that they experience more positive consequences from drinking. This could be due to increased social interactions typical of high SS students, resulting in a more positive appraisal of the drinking context. These conclusions may inform college drinking prevention and intervention programs.
Notes
Notes
1. Mediation analyses were also conducted with two other measures of alcohol consumption, drinking frequency and binge drinking frequency, to see if positive consequences also mediated the relation between SS and these drinking variables. Results were consistent with our drinking quantity mediation model in that positive consequences significantly mediated the relationship between SS and both drinking and binge drinking frequencies.