Objective: Pre-drinking, the practice of consuming alcohol prior to attending a subsequent 2 event, increases the risk of alcohol-related harm, and is common in undergraduate student 3 populations. The current study tested an integrated behaviour change model to identify the 4 motivational, social-cognitive, and implicit predictors of pre-drinking. 5 Design: University students (N = 289) completed an online questionnaire comprising 6 measures of motivational and social-cognitive constructs related to reducing pre-drinking 7 alcohol consumption and past behaviour, and an implicit association test for drinking identity. 8 Participants reported their pre-drinking alcohol consumption at follow-up, four weeks from 9 baseline. 10 Main Outcome Measures: Self-reported pre-drinking alcohol consumption. 11 12 Results: A variance-based structural equation model revealed that few model hypotheses 13 were supported. Although the effects of past behaviour, perceived behavioural control, and 14 implicit drinking identity, on follow-up pre-drinking alcohol consumption were 15 statistically significant, the effect of intention was not. 16 Conclusion: Current findings indicate pre-drinking alcohol consumption is associated with 17 past behaviour, perceived behavioural control, and implicit drinking identity, and not 18 intentions to reduce pre-drinking alcohol consumption. Finding raise questions over the 19 validity of applying the integrated model in this context. Interventions should consider these 20 factors and attempt to facilitate the formation of intentions that lead to subsequent behaviour.

The present study investigated how pre-drinking could be explained using a model based on dual-systems theory, incorporating measures of explicit and implicit constructs. Undergraduate students (N = 144; 44 male; 100 female; M age = 20.1 years), completed an online survey comprising measures of pre-drinking motives, a measure of pre-drinking cost motives, and an alcohol identity implicit association test. Variance-based structural equation modelling revealed that the predictors explained 34.8% of the variance in typical pre-drinking alcohol consumption and 25% of the variance in alcohol-related harm. Cost, interpersonal enhancement, and barriers to consumption motives predicted higher typical pre-drinking alcohol consumption and greater alcohol-related harm. Higher situational control scores predicted lower typical pre-drinking alcohol consumption, and lower alcohol-related harm. Positive implicit alcohol identity predicted alcohol-related harm, but not typical alcohol consumption. Results indicate that a dual-systems approach to pre-drinking has utility in predicting alcohol-related harm and may inform interventions to reduce excessive alcohol consumption and associated harm.

Results provide support for the hypothesised model relationships. Autonomous motivation, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control were influential in forming students' intentions to pre-drink. However, consistent with previous findings, the intention-behaviour relationship was relatively weak. Future research should look to non-intentional and volitional processes that may influence pre-drinking in undergraduates.

Consistent with theories of illness perceptions and coping, current findings indicate that the larger, prominent graphic health warnings on plain-packaged tobacco products had pervasive effects on threat perceptions and subsequent behavioural responses. While some of the reported responses were adaptive (e.g. attempts to quit), others were maladaptive (e.g. avoiding the warnings).