Masculine norms are social constructs that lead men to engage in behaviors like heavy drinking to demonstrate “manliness”. The Masculine Drinking Norms Measure (MDNM) captures alcohol-specific masculine norms through two subscales: excess, which emphasizes heavy drinking and high tolerance, and control, which reflects respectful and restrained drinking. While excess has been consistently linked to greater alcohol use and problems, control has shown mixed, sometimes protective associations. Given this, understanding how excess and control operate through drinking motives is critical. Because drinking motives—social, enhancement, coping-depression, coping-anxiety, and conformity—are key pathways linking individual and contextual factors to alcohol use, examining how the masculine drinking norms of excess and control relate to these motives may provide a more nuanced understanding of how masculinity influences alcohol use among college men. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the associations between masculine drinking norms (excess and control) and drinking motives among male college students, while controlling for established predictors including age, fraternity membership, athletic involvement, and conformity to traditional masculine norms.
The study utilized survey data from 1,350 college men drawn from a larger multisite study conducted at 12 U.S. universities across the Atlantic Coast, Midwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast regions. Survey measures included drinking motives (i.e., social, enhancement, coping–depression, coping–anxiety, and conformity) assessed using the Modified Drinking Motives Questionnaire–Revised; masculine drinking norms assessed with the Masculine Drinking Norms Measure (MDNM), a scale capturing alcohol-specific masculine norms; conformity to traditional masculine norms assessed with the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI-29); and heavy episodic drinking assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test–Consumption (AUDIT-C). Five separate linear regressions were employed to predict each of the five drinking motives.
The study findings indicate that the social and enhancement motives to drink alcohol were positively correlated with excess and control. Coping-anxiety and coping-depression were positively correlated with excess and not correlated with control. Conformity was positively correlated with excess and negatively correlated with control. After controlling for age, fraternity status, athletic involvement, and conformity to traditional masculine norms, control was found to be positively associated with social drinking motives, while excess was positively associated with all five drinking motives. Excess emerged as the strongest predictor of social and enhancement drinking motives. Conformity to traditional masculine norms also emerged as strong predictors of drinking motives. For social motives, the strongest positive predictors were excess, CMNI-29 risk taking, and winning. For the coping motives models, CMNI-29 self-reliance was the strongest positive predictor, followed by excess. For conformity motives, CMNI-29 power over women was the strongest positive predictor, followed by excess. For the enhancement model, the strongest positive predictors were excess and CMNI-29 risk-taking. CMNI-29 emotional control served as the strongest negative predictor across multiple drinking motives.
Takeaway: The alcohol-specific masculine norm of excess is associated with all drinking motives, underscoring the need for targeted interventions addressing excess in college men’s alcohol use.
Duryea, P. R., Zamboanga, B. L., Wang, W., Pal, N., Van Hedger, K., Newins, A. R., … & McChargue, D. E. (2025). Alcohol-Specific Masculine Norms and Drinking Motives among College Men. Substance Use & Misuse, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2025.2553306