The event-level impact of one’s typical alcohol expectancies, drinking motivations, and use of protective behavioral strategies

•Individuals who endorsed positive expectancies also endorsed positive motives.•Those who had positive motives for drinking utilized less protective strategies.•Less use of protective strategies was associated with higher intoxication.•More intoxicated individuals were susceptible to more serious consequences. Much of the past research on the excessive consumption of alcohol by college students has focused on the interplay of individual factors and typical drinking patterns, but this is not adequate to understand behavior as it occurs. The need to understand drinking at the event-level is critical in order to develop event-level prevention. To this end, this study examined a conceptual model of college students’ drinking events in order to determine the potential mediating effect of drinking motives and protective behavioral strategies (PBS) in the relationship between alcohol expectancies and event-level alcohol use and consequences. An existing data set containing information about 2279 college student drinking events were analyzed for this study. Students completed surveys during the administration of a commercial online alcohol course during 2010 and 2011. A theoretical model was analyzed with structural equation modeling. Both typical use of PBS and drinking motives mediated the relationship between expectancies and event-level alcohol use and problems. Positive expectancies were associated with greater positive motives, greater motives were associated with less use of PBS, and less PBS use was then, in turn, associated with higher event-level intoxication. Lastly, higher intoxication was associated with more serious consequences during the event. This is the first study to simultaneously explore the relationship between these factors and event-level drinking. There is a great need to continue to further explore the dynamic nature of drinking at the event-level to illuminate potential leverage points amendable to change.