Young adult drinking on a 21st birthday has been shown to be associated with more alcohol consumption and negative consequences than any other celebratory occasion. This study focuses on positive urgency and the tendency to act rashly in response to positive emotions during a 21st birthday drinking event. The goal of the study was to find out the effectiveness of a single event text message created as an intervention technique to reduce 21st birthday drinking and the consequences surrounding this risky drinking behavior.
To complete the study, 183 undergraduate students all close to their 21st birthday were recruited. From there, each participant was randomly assigned to either receive and interventional text message, or no message at all. The participants that did receive this intervention, received one text the day before their birthday with personalized normative feedback. They also received one text message the day of their 21st birthday as a form of a protective behavioral strategy. To collect relevant data, students were asked about their alcohol consumption the day after their 21st birthday celebration.
What the researchers found was the positive urgency, or the tendency to engage in rash action in response to extreme positive affect, was significantly associated with participants drinking more than planned during their birthday celebration along with more negative alcohol-related consequences. Surprisingly, for the group of individuals who had high levels of positive urgency, researchers found that receiving the intervention was associated with drinking more than planned. What this means is that interventions with normative feedback and protective behavioral strategy may has a worsening effect for those high in positive urgency. Because of this type of interventions negative impact, there may be a need for developing a different intervention that could be effective for those high in positive urgency.
Take Away: Drinking during a 21st birthday celebration is associated with more alcohol consumption and negative consequences. This study looks at positive urgency and the tendency to act rashly in response to positive emotions during a 21st birthday drinking celebration. To complete the study, 183 undergraduate students close to their 21st birthday were recruited. Half of them received two interventional texts, a normative feedback text the day before, and a protective behavioral strategy text the day of the celebration. What they found was that for the group of individuals with higher positive urgency, the interventional texts were associated with drinking more than planned and higher negative consequences. This means that intervention may need to be created differently for those individuals with higher positive urgency.