Predicting undergraduates' intentions to drink

Sex-linked differences in motivation to drink were studied with Fishbein's model of the relationship between attitudes and behavior. Fishbein's model was revised so that personal normative beliefs were seen as measuring ideal behavioral intentions (what the person intended given real-world constraints) rather than personal norms. A total of 101 college students (53 women) completed a questionnaire. Also, 10 additional students (five women) were interviewed to determine referents whose expectations were salient for the present sample. Both attitudes and social normative beliefs (SNB) correlated significantly with ideal behavioral intentions (IBI); IBI was able to be predicted from the weighted sum of attitudes and SNB. IBI correlated significantly with actual behavioral intentions and accounted for the majority of the variance in actual intentions to drink. Support for the revision of Fishbein's model was shown by the direct effect of attitude on women's intentions to drink. The lack of mediation of attitudes by IBI showed that IBI function differently from actual intentions. The revised model was shown to be very successful in predicting intentions to drink, and in exploring gender and cultural differences therein.