Changes Over One Semester in Drinking Game Playing and Alcohol Use and Problems in a College Student Sample

One-hundred ninety-five alcohol-using college students completed a questionnaire in early September, at the beginning of the fall semester, then completed a follow-up questionnaire in mid-November, near the end of the semester. The questionnaires included items on levels of alcohol use, the Eysenck I.7 measure of impulsiveness and venturesomeness, alcohol expectancies, perceived norms for alcohol use, reasons for drinking, and aspects of drinking game playing. As predicted, those students who were 18 years of age and younger, nearly all of them 1st-year students, significantly increased their levels of alcohol use during their first semester in college. While increases in reasons for drinking were significantly predictive of increased alcohol use and problems in first-year and older students, increases in expectancies of alcohol effects and in frequencies of drinking game playing were significantly predictive of increases in alcohol use and problems only for first-year students. The present results provide further evidence of the importance of drinking games in the socialization of college students into problematic alcohol use.