A Partial Analysis of the Campus Influence on Drinking Behavior: Students Who Enter College as Nondrinkers

Abstract

A total of 493 college students from a medium-sized state university and a small, predominantly black university in Alabama were involved in an alcohol-use survey in the spring of 1991. The respondents were all nondrinkers in their senior year of high school. The aim was to determine whether the social factors of institutional type, Greek affiliation, student living arrangements, and parental, peer, and religious attitudes toward alcohol use would influence drinking behavior during the college years. In other words, this study was designed to partial out some of the campus factors that may influence a nondrinker to begin using alcohol. Among the respondents, 46.5% started to drink in college. When the above factors were simultaneously estimated within a logistic regression context, only friends' negative attitude toward alcohol use and Greek affiliation significantly predicted students' drinking habits. If students did not have friends who discouraged them from using alcohol, and if they were affiliated with a fraternity or sorority, they were three times more likely to become drinkers in college as were students to whom the two conditions did not apply.