College students are out for the summer, but they can always prepare for the fall

These Are the Four Types of Drunk College Students, According to Science

Posted by Ross Pomeroy, RealClearScience

According to anecdotal reports, clinical lore and internet articles like ‘‘The 12 types of drunk people you’ll encounter at a bar,’’ ‘‘The 7 kinds of drunk people you’ll find at parties,’’ and ‘‘The 9 types of drunk people (and which one you may be!),’’ not all drinkers act the same when intoxicated.

So begins Rachel Winograd's latest scientific paper, published in the journal Addiction Research and Theory. When Winograd, a psychology graduate student at the University of Missouri, perused those clickbait Internet articles, she found them devoid of scientific evidence and entirely incapable of answering the valid question they broached: Are there truly "types of drunks"?

The landscape of published scientific literature was similarly barren. Winograd and her co-authors, Douglas Steinley and Kenneth Sher couldn't find a single empirical study on the matter, so they formulated their own. The trio was treading upon new ground. It would be the first attempt to scientifically identify drunk personality types.

The work began where many psychology studies often do: in an introductory psychology class.

187 pairs of "drinking buddies" were recruited via email and invited into the laboratory, where -- in strict confidence -- they individually completed surveys covering their background, drinking behavior, and personality, both sober and drunk. Each participant also described the personality and drinking behavior of their "buddy."

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