College students who have been mandated to alcohol-related interventions are an understudied population. As a result, little is known about the variables which are important in explaining these students’ intentions for high-risk alcohol consumption. Deepening understanding of the underlying motivational factors associated with alcohol-related intentions in this population could lead to more effective interventions and prevention strategies aimed at decreasing alcohol harms. For this purpose, the current study is the first to examine the theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) as a statistically predictive model for alcohol-related intentions among college students mandated for intervention.
A sample of 77 mandated college students completed questionnaires measuring the TPB variables of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention to drink to intoxication. Regression analyses were used to test the explanatory power of the TPB for intention to drink to intoxication, after controlling for social desirability. Further, the impact of impulsivity and aversiveness of alcohol-related consequence (Barnett et al., 2006) were tested alongside the TPB variables as an extension of the theory.
Results showed partial support for the TPB in explaining alcohol-related intentions in this sample of college students who were mandated for alcohol intervention. In particular, attitude and subjective norm explained unique variance in intention to drink to intoxication in this sample even after controlling for the variance accounted for by social desirability. Exploratory analyses revealed that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control explained unique variance in intention to drink to intoxication for participants who were the heaviest and most frequent drinkers in this sample, which suggested that the TPB was fully supported for this subsample of students. Neither impulsivity nor aversiveness of alcohol-related consequence improved the TPB’s explanatory power. Practice implications for alcohol prevention and intervention development are discussed as well as directions for future research.