Gender as a moderator of the relationship between preparty motives and event-level consequences

Prepartying is often associated with increased alcohol consumption and negative alcohol-related consequences among college students. General drinking motives are often only weakly related to preparty alcohol use, and few studies have examined the associations between preparty-specific drinking motives and alcohol-related consequences that occur during or after a preparty event. The current study utilizes event-level data to address this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between four types of preparty motives (prepartying to relax or loosen up, to increase control over alcohol use, to meet a dating partner, and to address concerns that alcohol may not be available later) and alcohol consequences as a function of gender.

Participants (N=952) reported on their most recent preparty event in the past month.

After controlling for general drinking motives, all four preparty motives predicted greater event-level consequences for both males and females. Further, prepartying to increase control over alcohol consumed was associated with greater consequences for males as compared to females.

The findings are consistent with research suggesting that preparty specific motives may further our understanding of prepartying outcomes over and above the use of general drinking motive measures.