Why do young people drink? A review of drinking motives.
This article reviews evidence of adolescent and young adult drinking motives and their relation to possible consequences over the last 15 years. To this end, a computer-assisted search of relevant articles was conducted. Results revealed that most young people reported drinking for social motives, some indicated enhancement motives, and only a few reported coping motives. Social motives appear to be associated with moderate alcohol use, enhancement with heavy drinking, and coping motives with alcohol-related problems. However, an enormous heterogeneity was found in terms of how motives were measured: 10 to 40 items were grouped into between 2 and 10 dimensions and sometimes the same items occurred under different dimensions. Future studies should therefore use well-defined, theoretically based, homogenous instruments to disentangle cultural from measurement differences across surveys.
Kuntsche
Emmanuel
E
Research Department, Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems (SIPA), PO Box 870, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland. ekuntsche@sfa-ispa.ch
Knibbe
Ronald
R
Gmel
Gerhard
G
Engels
Rutger
R
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D036262:Empirical Research; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010551:Personality; D010552:Personality Assessment; D011594:Psychometrics; D012107:Research Design; D012917:Social Adjustment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires