What makes residents of certain states or countries more likely to consume morealcohol? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, highlevels of individualism lead to more problem drinking.
"We looked at the extent to which consumer levels of individualism (vs.collectivism) were related to their beer and problem alcohol consumption," writeauthors Yinlong Zhang and L.J. Shrum (both University of Texas-San Antonio).
"We found that the higher a region scored on valuing individualism, the greatertheir beer and alcohol consumption, and this was true even when taking intoaccount the effects of other variables such as income, climate, gender, andreligion."
The researchers first used archival data to conduct comparisons of beer andalcohol consumption. They compared countries and compared states within theUnited States. They found that individualism, on a whole-country basis, couldsignificantly predict alcohol consumption. In the United States, individualismcorrelated with teen drinking, teen heavy drinking, and adult binge drinking.
The researchers went on to manipulate the cultural orientation of individuals inthe study. "We did this by simply asking people to either think and then writeabout enjoying their own life (independent self-construal) or think and then writeabout enjoying relationships with family and friends (interdependent selfconstrual),"the authors wrote. "We found that people who were temporarilyinduced to have an independent self-construal were more receptive to immediatebeer consumption than were people who were temporarily induced to have aninterdependent self-construal." Study participants did not actually consume beer;they merely indicated whether they felt like it.
The researchers found that people with more interdependent mindsets were lesslikely to over-consume when they were with peers. "The results suggest thatpeople with collectivistic cultural orientations tend to be more motivated toregulate impulsive consumption tendencies than those with individualistic culturalorientations, which in turn makes them less likely to engage in beer or alcoholconsumption," the authors conclude.