Pregaming: An Exploratory Study of Strategic Drinking by College Students in Pennsylvania

Abstract

Objectives: This exploratory study examined pre-event drinking, or pregaming, by US college students. Participants: 112 undergraduates from 10 Pennsylvania colleges participated. Method: A focus group, including a written questionnaire, was conducted at each institution. Results: Only 35.7% of the participants had not pregamed during the last 2 weeks. Pregamers consumed an average of 4.9 (SD = 3.1) drinks during their most recent session. Gender, class year, and other demographic variables did not predict pregaming. Heavier drinkers, and those stating that the average student pregamed 3+ times in the last 2 weeks, were more likely to report pregaming in the last 2 weeks. How much students drink when pregaming is influenced by how much they expect to drink later on. Conclusion: Pregaming presents a growing challenge for campus officials. Additional research is needed on the nature of the problem and which combination of prevention strategies might best address this behavior.     

Book reviews and books received

Abstract

In the field of stress research it is often assumed that social support as well as coping behaviour contributes to feelings of health and well-being. However, until now it has not been altogether clear whether a main-effect model or a buffer model was the more appropriate for explaining the role of these factors in response to stressful situations. In this paper, a research project is described in which both the direct and indirect effects of social support and coping were studied in the work situation of nurses. The results offer more support for a main-effect model than for a buffer or moderating-effect model, especially with regard to the coping strategies ‘active problem-solving’ and ‘palliative behaviour’. However, some moderating effects on nurses‘ reactions to their work situation were found for social support and for ‘comforting cognitions’ as a coping strategy.     

Influence diagnostics in a multivariate normal regression model with general parameterization

Patriota and Lemonte [24] introduced a quite general multivariate normal regression model. This model considers that the mean vector and the covariance matrix share the same vector of parameters. In this paper we present some influence assessment for this model, such as the local influence, total local influence of an individual and generalized leverage which are discussed. Additionally, the normal curvatures for local influence studies are derived under some perturbation schemes.     

Visual Dominance and Visual Egalitarianism: Individual and Group-Level Influences of Sex and Status in Group Interactions

This study investigated visual dominance and visual egalitarianism of men and women (N = 94; 17 teams) in team meetings at diverse workplaces. Two novel gaze-related measures were developed: (a) a group visual dominance ratio (group-VDR) assessing each member’s visual dominance vis-à-vis all other members, and (b) a gaze distribution index (GDI) assessing each member’s visual egalitarianism to all group members. Multilevel analyses were conducted to account for influences of the team members’ sex and status on the individual level and for influences of sex and status composition of the teams, and the team leaders’ sex on the group level. Results suggested that high-status individuals displayed more visual dominance than low-status individuals. The significant interaction of individuals’ sex and status indicated that the positive relationship of status and visual dominance applied particularly to women. The more women in a team, the more visual dominance was displayed. The team leader’s sex significantly influenced visual egalitarianism: Gaze distribution was less egalitarian when the team leader was male.     

On the number of separable partitions

Consider partitions of a given set A of n distinct points in general position in ℝ ^d into parts where each pair of parts can be separated by a hyperplane that contains a given set of points E. We consider the problem of counting and generating all such partitions (correcting a classic 1967 result of Harding about the number of such partitions into two parts). Applications of the result to partition problems are presented.     

Asymptotic tests and monte carlo studies associated with the multiplicative interaction model

Several authors have proposed approximations to percentage points required for testing certain hypotheses associated with the multiplicative interaction model. Alternative approximations based on the asymptotic joint distribution of the characteristic roots of a noncentral Wishart matrix are proposed in this paper. The type I error rates of the resulting tests and the existing procedures are then compared using Monte Carlo methods.     

On the asymptotic efficiency of moment and maximum likelihood estimators in the three-parameter inverse gaussian distribution

The asymptotic distribution of estimators generated by the methods of moments and maximum likelihood are considered. Simple formulae are provided which enable comparisons of asymptotic relative efficiency to be effected.     

Estimating the prevalence of sensitive behaviour and cheating with a dual design for direct questioning and randomized response

Randomized response is a misclassification design to estimate the prevalence of sensitive behaviour. Respondents who do not follow the instructions of the design are considered to be cheating. A mixture model is proposed to estimate the prevalence of sensitive behaviour and cheating in the case of a dual sampling scheme with direct questioning and randomized response. The mixing weight is the probability of cheating, where cheating is modelled separately for direct questioning and randomized response. For Bayesian inference, Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling is applied to sample parameter values from the posterior. The model makes it possible to analyse dual sample scheme data in a unified way and to assess cheating for direct questions as well as for randomized response questions. The research is illustrated with randomized response data concerning violations of regulations for social benefit.     

Graph monotonic values

A disturbing feature of most of the solution concepts for TU games with incomplete communication is that payments of players may decrease when they activate a new link. That can be considered as a drawback which does not occur for the Myerson value (Math Oper Res 2:225–229, 1977) of superadditive games. The present article offers a new axiomatic characterization of the Myerson value. We show that the Myerson value is the unique solution for games with communication structures verifying a set of properties including monotonicity with respect to the graph and coinciding with the Shapley value when the communication is complete.