Criticism of Drinking as Informal Social Control: A Study in 18 Countries

Abstract

The focus is on informal control of drinking, indicated by criticism of people in the social network on someone's alcohol consumption. Country and gender differences in the extent drinkers suffering from typical symptoms of heavy or prolonged alcohol use report informal control from others (reactive informal control), and country and gender differences in the extent comments on someone's drinking are (also) directed at those who do not suffer from these symptoms (proactive informal control) were studies. Data from 18 general population surveys, selected from an integrated dataset on drinking and drinking-related factors including more than 35 countries. Results show that men suffering from typical symptoms of heavy or prolonged alcohol use are more likely to be criticized than equivalent women (reactive control). Irrespective of gender, reactive informal control is more prevalent in poorer countries and in countries with a high proportion of abstainers. Concerning proactive control, among women a larger part of criticism appeared to be directed at those who (as yet) do not suffer from symptoms typical for heavy or prolonged alcohol use. There is a lot of variation between countries in pro-active informal control. This variation is only weakly related to prosperity of a country but not to its proportion of abstainers.