All Articles Tagged "binge-drinking"
Are You and Your Man Driving Each Other to Drink?
Men and women can drive eachother to drink either by messing up, or as a new study shows, by being heavy drinkers themselves.
In monitoring 208 heterosexual couples in their early 20s over a 28-day period, researchers found that they could predict one partner’s binge drinking based on the others drinking pattern.
“Binge drinking in university students occurs in both young men and women. Studies with married couples show that men have more of an influence on women, but in our study, we found both young women and young men influence their partner’s binge drinking,” says Aislin Mushquash, a fourth year PhD student at Dalhousie University.
I’ve seen this dynamic with a female associate who drinks heavily and would always encourage her boyfriend to keep up with her. One of the researchers noted that this finding should serve as a warning to choose partners and friends wisely if you are easily pressured into drinking.
Because alcohol seemed to be a recurring theme among all couples,the researchers say the finding helps explain why so many young people are drinking heavily, but they still need to get to the root of each individual’s drinking and what attracted the partners to one another.
“This research answers some key question but always raises some key questions – do birds of a feather all flock together? Do heavy drinkers naturally gravitate towards each other? Does each partner have a family history of alcoholism? These are questions we don’t yet know the answers to,” says Dr. Simon Sherry, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Dalhousie University.
Have you noticed that you drink more when your boyfriend/husband drinks? Do you influence your partner’s drinking?
Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.
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Drinking Ad Accused of Blaming Victims for Rape
The Pennsylvania Liquor Board’s new ad campaign was intended as a warning about the increased risk for rape when women drink heavily, but accusations that the ad blames rape victims for their attack has caused the Board to pull the ads.
Between the wording and the imagery, it’s easy to see how the perception of blame comes into play when the focus of the ad should really be responsible drinking to protect yourself from the threat of rape. In addition to the ad seen here, another version reads, “Date Rape. See what could happen when your friends drink too much.”
Shock tactics are extremely common in advertising, but are they effective at capturing people’s attention, and in this instance, inciting a change of behavior? Adam Duhachek, an associate professor of marketing at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, says not necessarily. He told The Wall Street Journal that two things can limit the efficacy of ads portraying negative outcomes: “The first is that people just shut down and don’t process the message at all,” because people might see the disturbing images and think, “I was having a perfectly nice day until I saw this, and now I’m not going to look at it.” The second issue is that negative ads trigger a “defensive processing mechanism” in which viewers actively distance themselves from the presented outcome, thinking it can never happen to them.
With the ad pulled, these factors may not be an issue when it comes to alcohol-fused sexual assaults, which a spokeswoman for the Liquor Board says happen to more than 97,000 people on an annual basis. But wording on the board’s website, controltonight.com, which is visible on the ads still tells women to “Call the Shots” and presents hypothetical situations of what could happen if young women drink too much with friends. For many, the undertone of blame may still be present.
What’s your take on the ad campaign? Does it promote blame when it comes to women who are victims of rape after a night of drinking? Or do you think it encourages personality responsibility?
Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.
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