Personality Traits, Learned Beliefs, and Alcohol-Related Behaviors Among Chinese University Students: The Mediating Role of Alcohol Expectancies and Drinking Refusal Self-Efficacy.

Background

Risky alcohol use among Chinese university students remains a public health concern. However, little is known about how personality traits and learned alcohol-related beliefs are associated with alcohol-related behaviors. This study examined associations of reward and punishment sensitivity, alcohol expectancies, and drinking refusal self-efficacy with drinking frequency, high-risk drinking, and self-protective behaviors.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among N = 800 university students in China. Separate path models were estimated, with each model corresponding to one alcohol expectancy dimension.

Results

Across the six models, reward sensitivity was positively associated with all expectancy dimensions; punishment sensitivity was positively associated only with arousal and aggression expectancy. Expectancies showed few direct outcome associations but were consistently associated with lower context-specific refusal confidence. Lower refusal confidence showed domain-specific associations: social-pressure and opportunistic confidence with more frequent drinking, emotional-relief confidence with greater high-risk drinking, and social-pressure confidence with fewer self-protective behaviors. Peer alcohol use and social media exposure to peer drinking were positively associated with both drinking outcomes; male students reported fewer self-protective behaviors.

Conclusions

These findings highlight alcohol-related beliefs and refusal confidence as potential intervention targets. Prevention programs may benefit from expectancy-focused, scenario-based refusal training addressing peer, social media, and gender-related influences.