Drinking Motives, Perceived Norms, and Adolescents’ Drinking

Abstract

Various cognitive and social factors influence the consumption of alcohol during adolescence. Accurate assessment of the relative importance of these variables is crucial for planning interventions against alcohol-related problems. This study compared the effects of drinking motives, perceived parent, and peer alcohol consumption on alcohol use in Italian adolescents. We collected the data by means of a self-report questionnaire on a sample of 229 secondary school students who were 15 to 20 years old. To test the influence of different groups of predictors, we performed three hierarchical regression and one binary logistic regression analyses. We found that perceived norms about drinking influenced adolescents’ alcohol consumption: Perception of friends’ alcohol use was of particular significance, whereas perceived parental norms had an influence only concerning alcoholic beverages with low alcohol content, such as beer. Regarding drinking motives, internal motivations were related to risky drinking, whereas external motivations were not associated with problematic alcohol consumption.