Formative research on identifying and promoting responsible party-hosting skills among college students

Abstract

The current project assessed college students' partyhosting skills and consequences to help facilitate the development of an environment-based strategy to reduce unsafe and underage drinking behaviors at social events. Three focus groups were conducted with students at a large Northeast institution; these students resided in the largest privately owned student housing complex off-campus. Findings show that students announced parties through mediated (e.g. social media and texting message) and non-mediated (e.g. word of mouth) means. Participants believed that the party hosts should take full responsibility for all aspects of their social events. Based on the general conceptual framework of theory of planned behavior, it is clear that while student attitudes toward party hosting were facilitated by personal enjoyment, social status, and cost factors, undesirable party consequences (including underage and binge drinking) were seen as congruent with student party norms. Findings also indicated that students perceived themselves as having little control over the negative consequences of party hosting, including intoxication and violence as well as financial and legal liability. Nonetheless, students did demonstrate a willingness or probable intention to learn and practice responsible party-hosting skills. A discussion of prevention messaging and program development was provided.

Commuter Students’ Readiness to Help in Incidents of Campus Sexual Violence

“…In terms of commuter students and these risk factors, generally commuter students are less likely to attend fraternity parties (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2011). However, researchers also point to the importance of off-campus parties in students' social life and drinking (Lin et al, 2014) and a relationship between offcampus drinking (at off-campus parties and/or bars), binge drinking, and sexual violence (Ehlke et al, 2021). Indeed, research indicates that women who reported spending time at bars are twice as likely to experience repeat physical attacks and unwanted sexual contact (Weiss & Dilks, 2016).…”

Consuming Alcohol to Prepare for Adulthood: An Event History Analysis of the Onset of Alcohol Use Among Chinese College Students

“…Researchers have identified influential factors of college drinking, including media influence, which was highlighted in youth-oriented TV series such as The OC (Van Den Bulck et al, 2008) or best-selling adolescent novels (Coyne et al, 2011). Other important factors facilitating drinking behaviors include different types of social norms (Park et al, 2009;Yanovitzky et al, 2006), peer dialogue about drinking (Real & Rimal, 2007), social motives (Corbin et al, 2011), family communication patterns (Koesten & Anderson, 2004), parental divorce (Jackson et al, 2016), and partyhosting skills (Lin et al, 2014). Although the bulk of extant research has been conducted mainly in Western societies, researchers and practitioners seeking to curb problematic college drinking behaviors in a non-Western context still need to better understand the factors that influence such behaviors in a different cultural setting.…”