Social Network Composition, Relationship Type, and Alcohol Use Among Young Adults Not in Four-Year College

Abstract

Background: The drinking of social network members has been consistently associated with personal drinking. However, less attention has been paid to emerging adult populations outside of four-year college students and to potential moderators of this relationship. In a sample of emerging adults who never attended four-year college, this research examined: 1) the compositional characteristics of the social networks, 2) the association between the drinking of network members and personal drinking, and 3) how the association between network and personal drinking was moderated by relationship type (e.g., friend, parents, significant other). Methods: Data was provided by a sample of 525 emerging adults who participated in Qualtrics Panels. Results: In this noncollege sample, the composition of the social network was diverse, with roughly one-third of network members being friends and a little less than half being family members. Parents tended to consume alcohol more frequently than friends and significant others, but participants consumed alcohol more frequently with friends and significant others. Furthermore, drinking among friends and significant others tended to have stronger associations with personal alcohol use than drinking among parents. However, relationship type did not moderate the association between drinking with network members and personal alcohol use. Conclusions: Because of this, interventions need to be delivered to drinking groups.

Keywords:

• alcohol
• social network
• noncollege
• young adults

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by grant numbers K01AA025994 (PI Meisel) from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. NIH had no role in the study design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.