Sociological Influence on Student Drinking
This research paper will try to dissect the participation of each of these social influences and try to sort out the reason why students are swayed to induce themselves in alcohol while others are not. It is also understood that many research have been done that mainly focus on the social influences as cause or reason why adolescent, mainly students, indulge in alcohol. It is no longer a secret knowledge that family and peer pressure are pinpointed as the main root as to why adolescents susceptibility on trying to consume alcohol are major causes. These social influences are also the determinant whether the student will see alcohol as positive or negative.
Because of this common knowledge, this has been the reason why parents who are conscious of the ill-effects of alcohol consumption have a uniformly advised their children to choose wisely their friends and know their friends family background to prevent any negative influence on their children. This is usually the parental style of most intelligent and educated parents trying to instil in their children the bad effects or negativity of alcohol as a vice worth avoiding.
In this research these sociological influences will be discussed in in-depth manner and if there are research or studies that came out with statistics regarding the subject will be presented. It is also important to state that it is necessary to determine the pre- and post-initiation influences that give rise to and shape alcohol drinking expectations and this is best shown by the discussion on the influence of media to students.
To sum up, these questions will be answered intelligently as possible what are the unique roles of social influence and social bonding variables in shaping student alcohol outcome expectancy and what are the social bonding variables associated similarly with the development of alcohol outcome expectancies among students with and without drinking experience.
The Socio-Influence of Family, Peers and ReligionCulture
According to the social learning theory (SLT) models of alcohol use as stated by Abrams Niara (1987) pose that cognitive factors like outcome expectancy mediate the relationship between socio-environmental factors and drinking behaviour. It is no surprise then that these social influences variables such as family, peers and religion or culture are the strongest correlates of students alcohol use and misuse according to Abrams and Niara (1987).
There are already studies that showed that children of parents who misuse alcohol hold more favourable alcohol outcome expectancy than children of parents who do not misuse alcohol. It can be argued then that parental drinking is a strong predictor of adolescent drinking. This simple argument can be explained by simple logic of modelling factor. Parents as the first model of identity of children will invariably be imitated by the latter. If these children see that their parents do not drink alcohol and mainly maintain a social life without the dependency on alcohol to interact with people effectively then the children then will find comfort that there is no need for alcohol consumption.
This strong social influence emanating from the family itself is considered a strong determinant of the adolescents attitude towards alcohol. In the course of succeeding social interaction of children coming from a family where the attitude towards alcohol is negative, the outcome of their drinking expectancy can be determined. But what about the case of a student who decides not to drink because he has an alcoholic parents. Where does this place in the theory saying family is the strongest social influence variable Basically the family is still the role model as seen by the adolescent but rather as seeing it as a positive role model to imitate he sees it as a negative model wherein the youth learns what he should not do.
It can be discussed furthermore that the significance of the family as a social institution is well documented and its role in individual development is profound. There are many researches that have been made and pointed out the adult behaviour may be found in the family of origin.
The first encounter of a child on alcohol drinking is likely to happen in a family environment. Still, the fact that even if the parents are alcohol drinkers according to Valleman and Orford (1999) this does not automatically translate to an adolescent alcohol problem. Nevertheless, the family is still considered the first social influence variable for an adolescent to drink alcohol.
Next to the family, the peer as a social influence variable will have a position in the determination of the students attitude towards alcohol. There are already countless of researches and studies wherein it is found that there is a direct effects of peer modelling and pro-drinking attitudes on student expectations about the effects of alcohol use.
Peer pressure can be categorized under the description of social bonds. Although social bonds have received limited empirical attention as potential predictors of expectancy, there is already a strong theoretical and empirical ground for expecting that they too might have an influence. According to Jessor and Jessor (1977) bonds with conventional institutions, like community and universities, are related consistently to substance use among students.
Basing from social development model, strong bonds with family, school and community increase commitment to conforming behaviours and beliefs in the conventional order through their effect on peer association this has an indirect effect on student substance abuse. Association with delinquent peers is known to increase the likelihood that a student will acquire expectancies that dispose the adolescent to the use of alcohol.
Meanwhile culture based on religion is one potent determinant of whether an adolescent will have high possibility of drinking alcohol or not. But religion can only act as a strong determinant proportionate to the faith, belief and subservience of the person to such religious belief.
There are many religions in the worlds and those who are considered to have the most followers almost always consider drinking as not a problem only if the person does not succumb to excessive alcohol consumption or binging. Many of those who have fall prey to the use of alcohol in fact are members of these religions and yet religious teachings about alcohol consumption are not part of their everyday life practices.
For those who are serious with their faith, fostered by family and community support, there are adolescent who have a negative attitude towards alcohol. These youth are usually those who are not easily swayed or influenced by delinquent peer pressure or social conventional institution to drink alcohol.
So far there is only one religion that promotes total abstinence to alcohol. This religion is Buddhism. In the five precepts of this religion, one of them is the total avoidance of any intoxicating substance that can hamper their mental concentration and mindfulness.
If this precepts if practice by an adolescent subscribing to the teaching of Buddhism, then the use of alcohol for him is not an option to take no matter what the conventional lifestyle of the social institutions he is part of.
Advertisement
Many observers believe that alcohol advertising has a strong contribution to the widespread social acceptability of drinking and thereby foster both initial and continued use of it according to American Public Health Association Governing Council. Television advertising is cited as a major source of alcohol advertising available to young people. Each day, large number of American youth is exposed to television advertisement for alcohol, mainly beer.
Adolescent exposure to alcohol advertisement is not only relegated to television. There are many advertising promotional venues where alcohol is pitched to the young people. Several of these are seen on common locations such as supermarkets and corner stores.
The pervading question now is whether these alcohol advertisement foster drinking among the youth. Up to the present, the answer to this question is still unclear. In a review of econometric which was a survey and experimental studies made by Smart (1988), it is concluded that the evidence indicates little impact of alcohol advertising on alcohol sales and drinking.
Yet, because of advertising impact have been cumulative over time through a span of time, there is difficulties on its substantial effects on drinking especially on youth. There is already a study there found there is no quite definitive connection between adolescent drinking to alcohol advertisement. This is to say that there is also no clear relation to the drinking behavior of adolescents. However, these earlier studies usually use cross-sectional data and thus considered to be vulnerable to a reversed causality interpretation.
There is only one longitudinal examination of advertising exposure during adolescence and subsequent alcohol consumption wherein the study involves 667 New Zealand adolescents (Connoly et al. 1994). This study tried to examine whether recalled exposure to alcohol advertising at ages 13 and 15 predicted alcohol consumption at age 18.
This study found mixed results. It was found that males who recalled more alcohol advertisement at age 15 consumed more beer at age 18 than those who recalled fewer advertisement. Meanwhile, the females who recalled more alcohol advertisement at age 13 drank beer less frequently as 18-year olds. Furthermore, there were no effects of recalled advertisement exposure at age 13 for males or at age 15 for females.
In order to assess the impact of each source alcohol advertisement on drinking baseline non-drinkers Ellickson et al (2005) made a study to clarify alcohol advertising and subsequent drinking in a large sample of seventh-graders.
The result of their study is that forty-eight percent of the non-drinkers in grade 7 qualified as past-year drinkers by the spring of ninth grade. This means a substantial amount of initiation over the period examined. Among the baseline-drinkers, 77 reported using alcohol in the past year at the grade 9 follow-up.
They came to conclusion then that multiple modes of advertising influence subsequent drinking during mid-adolescence. For middle school youth who have not tried alcohol by grade 7, the likelihood of drinking during grade 9 increases with higher levels of exposure to in-store beer displays.
Conclusion
Basing from this research alone, it is understood very well why there are students who prefer to drink and some who prefer not to. There are basically social influence variables that come into play in their decision whether to indulge in alcohol or not. Of these social influence variables the three major influential factors are family, peers and culture or religion. There is also, as seen by a study, the strong influence of media through advertisement on the disposition of students whether to see alcohol as positive or not.
The first and foremost social influential factor is the family the core of society. This is normally where the student as has one way or another been exposed to alcohol. This may happen through direct experience of the student as he is growing up under the care of his family. This is the first stage, and crucial for that matter, when the student come to a realization whether alcohol should be considered as good or bad for him. If his familys lifestyle uses alcohol as a bonding tool for the family in events like reunions, then drinking alcohol will become a second nature to him in any celebration or gathering. The family then can be said to have the first influence on the student on how to perceive alcohol. The next social influence variable is the peer which may come through community, school and university. As the student is already grown up, he is already ready to create a bond with these institutions and whatever conventional attitude these institutions have towards alcohol is possible to be imbibed by the student. Last of the three major social influence variable why a student may decide to drink or not is his religious affiliation. Normally, his attitude towards alcohol will be dictated proportionately with his dedication and faith to his beliefs. If he takes his religion seriously, intoxication through alcohol is something that will make him consider drinking as not part of his lifestyle. There are many religions out there that usually see the negativity of alcohol and if the student is true and serious follower of his belief, then staying off alcohol may be easy and normal for him.
Yet, the decision of a student to drink or not to drink alcohol it seems is being tested and being conditioned by media through constant bombardment of alcohol advertisement. As seen by the study done by Ellickson et al (2005), students are being influence strongly by what they see on television and common place around them. Yet this study does not count the possibility of how strong family or religion influence is on the student.
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