Relationships between school harassment and problematic drinking in a college sample: Is need for approval a moderator?

Abstract

Objectives: Examines whether a personality characteristic, need for approval, moderates the relationship between harassment exposure and alcohol misuse over time in a college sample, and compare the results between genders. Participants: Six waves of data (fall 2011 to fall 2015) were collected from 1,240 study participants sampled from eight colleges and universities in the Midwestern United States. Methods: Two-level mixed modeling was conducted separately for exposure to sexual and generalized harassment and modeled separately for women and men. Results: In men only, need for approval significantly moderated the relationship between generalized harassment and binge drinking over time, where a higher need for approval put male students at increased risk. Conclusions: Harassment is a risk factor contributing to high levels of drinking among college students. School counseling centers and mental health professionals should take this factor into consideration, as well as individual personality characteristics when addressing student health and wellness.

Keywords:

• Binge drinking
• college drinking
• gender
• generalized harassment
• sexual harassment

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the former Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago for the data collection.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by grant number AA018138 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).