Multiple Styles of Self-Control Predict College Students' Alcohol Consumption

Abstract

Two hundred thirty-nine college students were administered Higgins' Revised Self-Control Scale, Huang, DeJong, Schneider, and Towvim's Composite Drinking Scale, and our own Multiple Styles of Self-Control Scale. Greater amounts of alcohol consumption were associated with two styles of self-control—Sociopathic and Consequence-Oriented styles—and lesser amounts of drinking were associated with 2 more of the 14 styles under study—Suppressive and Self-Soothing styles. These findings suggest that the most effective way to negate an impulse is to weaken the impulse itself—through either suppression or self-soothing—and that the least effective way is to try rationally to counteract the impulse by thinking about the consequences of giving in to it.