Measuring College Students' Motives for Playing Drinking Games

Johnson, Thomas J.
Sheets, Virgil L.

¹Department of Psychology and Center for the Study of Health, Religion, & Spirituality, Indiana State University.

²Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Thomas J. Johnson, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, 47809. E-mail: [email protected].

Earlier versions of different portions of this article were presented at the meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, November 1998, Washington, DC, and the 108th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, August 2000, Washington, DC.

Received September 25, 2002; Revision received July 2, 2003; Accepted July 2, 2003

Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 18(2):p 91-99, June 2004.

Students may choose to play drinking games not only for reasons related to alcohol consumption but also because of incentives related to other aspects of play (competition, fun, interpersonal dominance, etc.). College students (120 men and 167 women) completed measures of motives for playing (based on ) and consequences of playing drinking games. Exploratory principal-components analysis identified 8 reasons for playing. Men and women differed in their endorsement of the factors. Motives for play directly predicted consequences of play independently of alcohol consumption. Specific motives predicted specific types of consequences. In multiple regression analyses, Conformity motives were negatively related to consequences and may represent a form of protective motive.