A new study examined whether working memory, as measured by memory span tasks, moderates the relationship between perceived drinking norms and alcohol use. Participants (N = 97) were undergraduate college students who reported drinking at least once over the past month. Participants completed computer tasks that were used to assess working memory and included both verbal and visual tasks. Participants also completed a series of questionnaires about demographic information, drinking behavior using the Daily Drinking Questionnaire (DDQ), general health behavior, personality characteristics, and perceptions of normative peer alcohol use using the Drinking Norms Rating Form (DNRF). The authors used hierarchical linear regression analyses to examine whether working memory moderated the relationship between perceived drinking norms and heavy drinking episodes as well as number of drinking days in the past month. Results indicated that for frequency of drinking, there was a significant interaction between working memory and norms (p < 0.01), such that norms were a significant predictor of frequency of drinking only for those low (p < 0.001) and at the mean level (p < 0.001) of working memory but not those high (p = 0.68) in working memory. Similarly, the interaction between norms and heavy drinking episodes was significant (p < 0.05) such that norms significantly predicted heavy drinking episodes for individuals at low (p < 0.001) and mean levels (p < 0.01) of working memory, but not for those high in working memory (p = 0.75).
Take away: Both norms and working memory were significant predictors of both frequency of drinking and number of heavy drinking episodes in the past month.