Public self-consciousness, pre-loading and drinking harms among university students

Abstract

Background: Social anxiety and self-consciousness are associated with alcohol-related problems in students. The practice of pre-loading is one avenue for exploration regarding this relationship. Individuals may pre-load to reduce social anxiety and feel more confident when socializing, which could lead to the increased harms experienced. The current study aimed to explore reasons for pre-loading, and whether public and private self-consciousness and social anxiety were related to pre-loading, increased drinking, and harms. Objectives: Prospective study with four-week follow up of 325 UK students aged 18-–30 years old. Participants completed measures of private and public self-consciousness, social anxiety, alcohol consumption, alcohol-related harms, and pre-loading. Results: Financial motives and mood-related reasons, such as gaining confidence were reported as reasons for pre-loading. Pre-loading predicted hazardous alcohol consumption, but social anxiety, and public and private self-consciousness did not. However, pre-loading, public self-consciousness, and social anxiety predicted alcohol-related harms. Furthermore, public self-consciousness mediated the relationship between pre-loading and harms in a positive direction and this appeared to be more relevant in high-risk (AUDIT 8+) than low-risk drinkers. Conclusions: Students who scored higher in public self-consciousness appeared to be at greater risk of harms from pre-loading. Further research should examine this relationship with particular attention to high-risk drinkers, and explore which aspects of a night out are related to heightened self-consciousness. Interventions could incorporate measures to reduce public self-consciousness, in order to reduce the negative impacts of pre-loading.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• students
• pre-loading
• self-consciousness

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the participants for giving up their time and to Sarah Hennelly for collecting the data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Statement of contribution

ED conceived the study, developed the measures, and analyzed the open-ended questions. AP searched for literature and drafted sections of the introduction and results. ED and AP jointly analyzed the data and together wrote manuscript drafts and agreed on the final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Oxford Brookes University Central Research Fund.