Are punishment-avoiding college students protected from excessive alcohol consumption?

Personality and affective statistical predictors of alcohol consumption wer e assessed among 154 college students who were administered a test of alcoh ol consumption; personality scales to measure reward seeking, socialization , and punishment avoidance; and scales to measure positive affect and negat ive affect under 3 conditions (how participants usually felt and how they e xpected to feel after drinking a small and a large amount of alcohol). Hier archical regression analysis indicated that alcohol consumption was predict ed by gender, reward seeking, socialization, punishment avoidance, and expe ctations of positive and negative affective change after consuming a large amount of alcohol. Stepwise regression analysis revealed 3 unique contribut ors to alcohol consumption: gender, punishment avoidance, and expected nega tive affective change after consuming a large amount of alcohol.