An Evaluation of Individual and Group Behavioral Skills Training to Teach Members of Greek Letter Organizations to Free-pour Standards of Alcohol

Author

Meagan Anne Strickland, University of the PacificFollow

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Carolynn Kohn

First Committee Member

Heather Dunn Carlton

Second Committee Member

Corey Stocco

Abstract

College students engage in high levels of excessive drinking and certain subpopulations of college students, such as members of Greek Letter Organizations (GLOs) report higher levels of excessive alcohol consumptions. Those who report less excessive drinking also report counting their drinks and setting drink limits. However, the effectiveness of these strategies may be improved by the ability to accurately identify and pour standard servings of alcohol, an area in which college students’ knowledge is generally quite poor. Although individual behavioral skills training (BST) has been used to teach college students to accurately pour beer (Hankla et al., 2017), little is known about the effectiveness of BST when taught in a group setting, the setting most commonly used to teach college students accurate pouring, or when used with other alcohol types. Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across GLO design, we evaluated the effects of BST on the accuracy of college students’ (n = 10) free-pours into an 18-oz red plastic cup of standard servings of (a) beer when taught in a group setting and (b) liquor when taught in an individual setting. Results indicate that following group BST, all participants provided accurate free-pours of beer, but fewer did so with the untrained generalization cup that differs in shape. Following individual BST, participants free-pours of liquor were variable and most required at least two BST sessions. These results suggest BST can be used to teach pairs of college students to pour standard serving of beer. Future research should further examine the variability observed in individual BST for liquor and further examine generality across vessel shape.

Pages

70

Recommended Citation

Strickland, Meagan Anne. (2019). An Evaluation of Individual and Group Behavioral Skills Training to Teach Members of Greek Letter Organizations to Free-pour Standards of Alcohol. University of the Pacific, Thesis. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/3632