Background
Finland
was an agricultural country until the 1960s. Thereafter, Finland modernized
rapidly. Studies have postulated that as Finland becomes modernized,
intoxication-oriented drinking would gradually decrease. Current studies,
however, show that heavy episodic drinking has lately become more common among
men and women. Simultaneously, drinking is seldom motivated by the purpose of
getting drunk. The article tackles this conundrum by approaching drinking
motives from a ritual and an individual perspective. We study what kinds of
drinking motives currently exist in Finland, their prevalence among different
population groups, how they vary by social background, and their association
with intoxication.
Methods
The
data were collected as part of the nationally representative Drinking Habit
Survey in 2008. It consists of verbal descriptions on the most recent drinking
occasion (N = 521), estimations of its blood alcohol content, and responses to
pre-defined standardized motive questions related to the latest drinking
occasions (N = 8732).
Results
Besides
the motive ‘to get drunk’, also the motives of drinking as a ‘time-out’ ritual,
‘to get into the mood’ and ‘I drunk to brighten up’ predict a “wet” drinking
occasion. Overall, Finns highlight drinking motives of sociability, relaxation,
meal drinking and situational factors. The more educated orientate to their
drinking more with motives that express mastery of cultural capital and
individuality. The less educated and the young, again, orientate to their
drinking more with motives that imply intoxication and external expectations.
Conclusions
Whereas
the ritual perspective discloses what kinds of situations predict intoxication,
the individual perspective reveals what kinds of individualistic orientations
are associated with drunkenness. These perspectives partly speak past each
other and are difficult to combine. The article proposes that situational
perspective would serve as a bridge between them and enable the incorporation
of results from different research traditions.
Purchase full article at: http://goo.gl/efzLim
Affiliations
SoRAD/Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs
Stockholm University, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden
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