Indulging in alcohol is an accepted, and almost expected, pastime of college students. College males welcome this fact wholeheartedly. But when one too many drinks turns into four too many, priorities get confused. Another college pastime, sex, takes center stage.
A UB research project will focus on the impact of men's alcohol consumption and their perpetration of sexual aggression.
This study is unique in that research and information will be coming from the college male perspective. In previous studies regarding alcohol and aggression, the accounts of female victims were the only perspectives considered.
"The male perspective provides us with a different interpretation of the same action or behavior [witnessed by females]," said Maria Testa, lead investigator on the study and senior research scientist at UB's Research Institute on Addictions.
The study will involve 1,850 college freshman males from local colleges and will cover their first five semesters. The first part of the research will be gathered via web surveys that will question whether heavy drinking directly leads to sexual aggression.
"Both alcohol and individual factors may play a role in sexual aggression," Testa said. "[For those exhibiting] hyper masculinity, we are speculating that those men may be predisposed to act aggressively with or without alcohol."
The second part of the study will have a subsample of 324 college males report their drinking and sexual behavior over an eight-week span. They will make their observations using interactive voice response technology.
A previous project by Kenneth Leonard, RIA senior research scientist, may offer some insight into the effect alcohol has on aggression and violence. His research focused on the prevalence and predictors of alcohol-related violence in young adults, whether in college or not.
"Drinking and violence are seen predominantly in young adults," said Leonard, who is also a research professor and vice chair for research in the UB Department of Psychiatry and a research professor in the Department of Psychology. "But determining the context of the two is important. Alcohol being present with aggression or violence doesn't necessarily mean the alcohol caused them to happen."
Among many findings, Leonard observed that 33 percent of college males and 22 percent of college females either initiated or were victims of violence. In the end, the research found that drinking doesn't predict the occurrence of aggression but does predict the severity of the aggression and likelihood of injury when an incident does happen. "We found that for young adults, men experienced the most severe violence in a bar setting and women experienced this at home," Leonard said.
A factor to consider in both studies is the acceptance of aggression as going hand-in-hand with alcohol. If people believe alcohol leads to violence and sexual aggression, they may act accordingly, to some extent.
"The evidence doesn't support a placebo effect for alcohol, but those that believe [alcohol leads to aggression] can act differently," Leonard said. "Those that are more tuned to aggression or pick up threats easily may demonstrate this."
Leonard and Kathleen A. Parks, RIA senior research scientist, are collaborating with Testa on the upcoming study. Brian M. Quigley, RIA senior research scientist, and R. Lorraine Collins, associate dean for research for the School of Public Health and Health Professions were co-investigators on Leonard's previous study.
Funding for both studies came from grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
