We changed topics from our original proposal topic of student athletes to reasons why students drink. We did this for the following reasons.
It is a common stereotype that university students consume vast amounts of alcohol. Being students our self we think this is only partly true and therefor found it to be a something interesting as well as relevant to ourselves to research at a more deeper level. At first we were hoping to look at whether or not being a member of a university sports team affect the level of alcohol consumed in comparison to a non-sports team student. However due to us not having ethical clearance to do our own research on university sports team members we would have had to use secondary data. We found this to prove difficult to find results reflecting our specific question whether team pressure is one of the main reasons for student drinking. This then led us to modify our research question to look at the Reasons Behind such High Levels of Consumption.
The findings to the right are from a survey conducted by CORE Institute on the Alcohol and Drug use of University students. They were the percentage of responses who answered yes to the reasons for drinking alcohol. This shows that enhancing social activity and connection with peers stems from drinking alcohol, and as a new student who is most likely living away from home, this will be of particular importance. Hutching et al., (2011) also backed up this figure with the majority of students asked reported reasons for drinking alcohol was for social reasons.
A figure which is surprisingly lower than expected was that of dealing with stress, at only 43.9% saying yes. As a young adult the stresses of moving to university and adapting to the heavy work load and making new friends. Quite a shocking result was that to do with sexual opportunity and feeling sexier, a figure which shows that being sexually active and feeling attractive is a important issue for some students. Young et al (2006) also found that enhanced sexual performance and experience was a noticeable factor, being the third popular behind affective change such as mood change and assertion, such as having more self confidence.
Another finding that has not been mentioned in the CORE findings is that of peer pressure, or fitting in with a particular group. Affiliation with interuniversity athletic teams is associated with heavier drinking (Meilman et al.,1999). Athletes have reported high levels of conformity motives; the need to fit in with their peers (Hutching et al. 2011). This could be due to the societies they have which often celebrate on gameday as a weekly occurrence. Hutching et al. (2011) also found that males in sports teams were more likely to drink
alcohol excessively and fall into conforming to their peers, particularly on nights such as initiation into the group.
Each individual will have their own personal reasons for consuming alcohol, nevertheless as students have such a high prevalence of alcohol consumption it is obvious that there must be a correlation between the factors of being a university student and the need for alcohol.
University is known for its social side as well as the high levels of work; the findings suggest that alcohol consumption is generally done as a group experience, and that it enhances the experiences they have together, thus highlighting the effects of peer pressure. A worrying finding is that of sexual enhancement which was a key reason for people wanting to drink; with figures as high as 474,000 students having unprotected sex as a result of alcohol intake in 2001 (Higson et al. 2009) this is a very dangerous result of risky behaviour which takes place when intoxicated. This is also a result that many people regret, but still continue to drink alcohol, therefore furthering that alcohol drinking may be something they think they must do to ‘fit in’. The involvement in university societies, particularly sporting societies, also is a huge reason behind drinking as the societies plan nights around excessive drinking and partying. The regular finding is that students feel the need to consume alcohol to be considered ‘normal’ and ‘the same’ as their peers.
