The Influence of Social Referents on Alcohol Use Behaviour of College Students

Abstract

Alcohol continues to be the substance of choice for many youth of today, leading to serious physical, psychological and social consequences. Drinking habit has a long-range consequence and that includes the influence it has got on the drinking habit of the continuing generation. This study establishes the level of association between drinking behaviour and the attitude of social referents to drinking on the drinking behaviour of the adolescents and their attitude to drinking. A study on the 400 college going graduate students, with a mean age of 20.01 and standard deviation of 1.672, of West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh largely establishes an association between adolescents and their social referents. Parental habits and attitudes are transferred to the children in many situations. The Galos, who have been traditionally and historically grouped together with the other Abor groups of tribes, are a major tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. Eighty nine percent of the respondents belonged to this tribal population with 53.8 percent male and 46.2 percent female respondents.