Pleasures of Drinking: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how drinking is related to positive expectations of the effects of drinking. Data emanates from Gender, Alcohol and Culture - An International Study (GENACIS), a collaborative project in which surveys from all included countries utilized the same core questionnaire. Three indicators for positive expectations were used, representing a social, relational, and intimate dimension. Cross-country comparisons of positive expectancy reports were conducted, as well as exploratory multiple regression analyses of the relationships between expectations and drinking. Volume and binge drinking were used as two indicators for drinking pattern. The share of current drinkers varied between countries and genders. In all countries, men reported on expectancies more often than women. Regression model results are variable and not directly interpretable into cultural patterns, across countries and continents.

KEYWORDS:

• Cross-culture
• gender
• positive expectancies of drinking

Notes

RSOD = risky single occasion drinking (also known as binge drinking).

^a Drinkers only.

^b Monthly or more frequent RSOD drinkers only.

These data form part of the project Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study (GENACIS). GENACIS is a collaborative international project affiliated with the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol and coordinated by GENACIS partners from the University of North Dakota, the University of Southern Denmark, the Free University of Berlin, the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems. Support for aspects of the project comes from the United States National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism/National Institutes of Health (Grant Numbers R01AA04610 and R21AA12941, Sharon C. Wilsnack, principal investigator), the European Commission (Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources Programme, Contract QLG4-CT-2001-0196; Kim Bloomfield, coordinator), the World Health Organization (Isidore Obot, coordinator), the Pan American Health Organization (Maristela Monteiro, coordinator), the German Federal Ministry of Health, the German Federal Ministry of Health, and Swiss national funds (BBW 01.0366). Support for individual country surveys was provided by government agencies and other national sources. For this study, financing for the participation of K. H. Bergmark was provided by the Alcohol Research Council of the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly. Data coordinator for the GENACIS project is Gerhard Gmel, Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems, Lausanne, Switzerland.