A CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY OF MOTIVES FOR DRINKING ALCOHOL¹

Abstract

The role of individualism-collectivism in influencing the motives for alcohol use was examined by comparing motives for drinking among 72 U.S. (individualist) and 83 Nigerian (collectivist) respondents in 1998. The study also examined the role of gender. The Drinking Motives Questionnaire (Cooper, M.L.; Russell. M.; Skinner. J.B.; Windle, M. Development and Validation of a Three-Dimensional Measure of Drinking Motives. Psychol. Assess. 1992, 4, 123-132.) that classifies drinking motives into coping. enhancement, and social motives was used. The U.S. respondents were hypothesized to score higher on coping motives and lower on social motives than Nigerian participants. This hypothesis was supported. Male respondents also scored higher than females on all the three motives. These results have implications for intervention approaches regarding alcohol use for people with differing cultural orientations.

Drinking Motives, Sensation Seeking, and Alcohol Use Among Thai High School Students

“…This finding is similar to that gained in studies of collectivistic societies where social (external) rather than coping (internal) motives dominate (Gire, 2002;Peltzer, 2003). This result can be interpreted according to the attitude in African and Asian cultures of subordinating individual goals in favor of group goals (Gire, 2002).…”

Drinking Motives Mediate Cultural Differences but Not Gender Differences in Adolescent Alcohol Use

“…To the best of our knowledge, however, both in terms of sample size and variety of countries included, this is the largest drinking motive study ever conducted. Having focused on Europe, it would be interesting to extend this cross-cultural comparative work to countries from other continents such as Latin America, Africa [35], and Asia [36].…”

Drinking Motives and Links to Alcohol Use in 13 European Countries

“…Because this study focused only on Europe, it would be interesting to extend this large-scale cross-cultural comparison to countries from other continents. Comparisons of drinking motives between the United States and a country from Africa (Gire, 2002) and from Asia (Perera and Torabi, 2012) are promising examples in this respect.…”