Through the application of daily process methods and a multi-wave cohort sequential design, the proposed study will evaluate how college student alcohol use varies day-to-day in relation to daily experiences, social interactions, mood states, and alcohol-related cognitions, and how these relations change during a student's college tenure. The study will also examine how hypothesized risk factors, including alcohol expectancies and motives, family history of alcoholism, and behavioral disinhibition, affect everyday drinking patterns, and whether these patterns, measured close to their real time occurrence, predict post-graduation alcohol use and alcohol related problems. To address these aims, 405 college freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors from three Connecticut colleges/universities will use an innovative Internet reporting system every day for 30 days to record daily events, social interactions, daily mood, alcohol-related expectancies and alcohol consumption once a year for up to four years. Six months, 18 months and 30 months after graduation we will evaluate drinking levels, alcohol related problems, and overall well-being to determine how college drinking patterns influence these post-college outcomes. The proposed study is the first to examine the proximal daily concomitants of discrete drinking episodes among college students, how differences in drinking motives and traditional risk factors might be related to qualitatively different drinking contingencies on a day-to-day basis, and how these processes change over time in college and predict post-college drinking.
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