Mohammad Hussain: PARENTING STYLE, GENDER, BEER DRINKING AND

DRINKING PROBLEMS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

1

Parenting Style, Gender, Beer Drinking And Drinking Problems Of College Students
Mohammad Hussain
College of DuPage
Mohammad Hussain: PARENTING STYLE, GENDER, BEER DRINKING AND
DRINKING PROBLEMS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS
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Parenting Style, Gender, Beer Drinking And Drinking Problems Of College Students

In this study the conductor of the experiment wanted to see how different parenting styles

effect college students alcohol consumption. Alcohol abuse is a huge problem for college

students as 63% of males and 58% of females were drinkers in 2012. In a study done in 2005 it

was found that out of the 8 million college students in America 31% of those meet the criteria for

alcohol abuse. The study identified three different parenting which were authoritative, permissive

and authoritarian. The authoritative parent has an assertive approach with clear guidelines and

their kids usually have less problems mentally and emotionally. The authoritarian parent is

someone who wants their kids to obey the rules and makes the decisions for their kids without

consulting with them. They also offer little to no emotional support to their children. Permissive

parenting has been identified as a factor in this study that can lead to alcohol abuse by college

kids. Permissive parents usually have a laid back approach. They let their kids make the

decisions and often dont have clear rules in place for their kids to follow. Permissive parents are

a risk factor because of the lack of monitoring they do of their kids. The lack of monitoring and

inappropriate behavior not being addressed, often leads kids to drink because they dont fear the

consequences. This study had 4 hypotheses, the first was to see if permissive parenting in fact

was more closely related to alcohol abuse in college students. They also wanted to see if young

women drink less than young men. Lastly they wanted to find if gender and permissive parenting

will be indirectly related to alcohol abuse through beer drinking problems. The participants in

this study were 62 undergraduate taking psychology courses at a university in the Northeast

region of U.S. The participants were between the ages of 18-23 years old. About 46.8%

freshmen, 27.4% sophomores, 17.7% juniors and 8.1 seniors. There was also a majority of

females in this study at 67.7% and the rest 32.3% being male. 62.9% reported growing up in a
Mohammad Hussain: PARENTING STYLE, GENDER, BEER DRINKING AND
DRINKING PROBLEMS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS
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two parent family. The participant were selected from a General Psychology human participant

pool, and also from upper class psychology courses. They were also given extra credit in their

psychology classes for participating in the study. After the participants were selected, the

research method that was used was surveys. In this particular study the participants had to

complete 3 different surveys. The first was called the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ),

which is a 30 item questionnaire with 10 question each representing the 3 different parenting

styles identified in the study. The students had to recall how they were raised by their by their

parents over the years. The survey ranged from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. The

second survey given was called the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). The

survey has 10 questions and test for drinking patterns. The survey has a scale of 0-4 and those

whose sum came out to 8 or above were at risk for excessive drinking and dependence on

alcohol. The last survey given was called Beer Drinking Frequency from the Student Alcohol

Questionnaire (SAQ). Only the beer drinking frequency was rated and used in this study. The

scale of this survey ranged from 0-5 with zero being never to 5 being every day. The results were

how the study predicted they would be. The AUDIT had a mean of 8.55 which means that those

students are at risk for alcohol abuse. None of the parenting styles were significantly related to

Beer Drinking frequency and AUDIT scores except for permissive parenting. Thus proving that

permissive parents put college students at risk for alcohol abuse. The study also found that

women drank less than men and that gender and permissive parents are indirectly related with

alcohol abuse. While I think this was a good study it could have improved. They could have

improved the sample from 62 and used a bigger sample. The survey is not always a great way to

research because it can be a little inaccurate because of people dont always choose the right

thing on questionnaires.
Mohammad Hussain: PARENTING STYLE, GENDER, BEER DRINKING AND
DRINKING PROBLEMS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS
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References

Whitney, N., & Froiland, J. M. (2015). Parenting style, gender, beer drinking and

drinking problems of college students. International Journal of Psychology: A

Biopsychosocial Approach, Tarptautinis psichilogijos urnalas: Biopsichosocialinis

poiris 16, 93-109. doi: 10.7220/2345-024X.16.5