Beschreibung:
This work deals with three basic assumptions in contemporary drinking motive research. The first is that the four-dimensional model of drinking motives and links between the motive dimensions and alcohol use hold true among adolescents from different countries. The results of three empirical studies revealed striking cross-countries consistencies. This concerned not only the confirmation of the four-dimensional factor structure in the countries separately, but also its equivalence across countries in terms of item loadings on the four factors and factor variances and inter-correlations. The rank order in the mean scores of the four motives was also invariant across countries: Adolescents scored highest on social motives followed by enhancement, coping, and conformity motives, in said order. Moreover, evidence reveals that adolescents from countries in northern Europe differ in their drinking motivations from their counterparts in southern/central European countries and that the link between drinking culture (northern vs. southern/central Europe) and alcohol use was mediated by drinking motives.