The Importance of Expectations in the Relationship Between Impulsivity and Binge Drinking Among University Students

Alcohol intensive consumption (AIC) in university students has important clinical and social implications that motivate the need to look into the factors that favor its apparition and consolidation. More concretely, this study assesses the role of impulsivity and the associated expectations about consumption, as well as the possible mediation of expectations in the relationship between impulsivity and AIC. Three hundred and three students in the first year at the University Complutense of Madrid that carry out AIC kept a self-record of their consumption, a scale of expectations associated to the ingestion (IECI, 2012), and the BIS-11 scale of impulsiveness. In all cases, both men and women, doubles the grams of alcohol that define an AIC, as well as the frequency in the execution of this behaviour, which increases the probability that these negative consequences come about. No differences were found between men's and women's expectations associated to AIC, nor in their total impulsivity scores. The hierarchy regression analysis shows that expectations do not moderate the relationship between impulsivity and consumption. Both variables influence the independent mode of consumption (grams of ingested alcohol and frequency of ingestion), with a higher weight on expectations from both, men and women, but being significant the input of impulsivity only among males. This justifies the need to plan interventions that address the modification of these expectations, including, in the case of males, the aspects related to impulsivity.