Game Day Alcohol Expectancies



Game Day Alcohol Expectancies

Introduction

This article examined the consumption of alcohol among students from a university in the South East, and the expectancies that lead to their alcohol consumption. The alcohol expectancies that were studied were linked to home football games and the reasons why alcohol is consumed during those games were analyzed (Glassman, Miller, Miller, Wohlwend, & Reindl, 2012).

Methods

Research Design

The hypothesis to be tested was not specifically mentioned in the article and the research could have been made better by mentioning the hypothesis precisely. The proposed hypothesis was:

There is an effect of alcohol expectancies on alcohol consumption by students at the time of home football game (Glassman et al., 2012).

What authors proposed and improvisation

A questionnaire was designed to conduct survey of the students about the football game day. The respondents who said that they had not consumed alcohol on the game day were not included in the study (Barber, Barber, Burleigh & Root, 2005). The alcohol expectancy elements were based on Social Cognitive Theory and were taken from Brown, Christiansen, and Goldman's17 Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (AEQ). The authors were trying to propose that those who did not consume alcohol should not be included in the study. Whereas alcohol consumption is not necessary for bringing expectancies related to alcohol (Myers & Isralowitz, 2011). It has been previously noted that people develop beliefs and attitudes about the experiences they will have after drinking alcohol, even if they have not consumed alcoholic beverages in real. This is because mind functions the way it is told to, so if a person assumes that the drink he had contained alcohol, he might still feel sexually aroused or aggressive even if his drink did not contain alcohol. This is because of the perceived experiences that alcohol brings for people in different societies (Myers & Isralowitz, 2011).

The testing method could have been improved by also including the 247 students that responded to not have consumed alcohol. Also, instead of having a higher percentage of females (60.4%), the percentage quota of males and females should have been kept equal (50% for each gender). This is because football is a game of interest that mainly appeals to males. Females also enjoy the sport but including a higher percentage of males in the study could have improved answers from the questionnaires (Barber et al., 2005).

Development of topic

The topic is very much logical considering the present day environment where games constitute an integral part in college and university students' lives. On the other hand, alcohol consumption is a reality that cannot be denied. Games and alcohol consumption are crucially linked to each other thus studying alcohol's effects on the perceived experiences of participants makes absolute sense. The study concludes substantially by identifying the percentage of alcohol consumption before, during and after the home football game (Barber et al., 2005). Like the results of the past researches, this research also proved the same thing that college students are prone to drinking because of expectation that they ...