A Diary Study of Daily Perceived Mistreatment and Alcohol Consumption in College Students

Abstract

A 30-day college student diary study examined daily perceptions of mistreatment, state ego-depletion, and evening alcohol consumption. We found that on days college students reported being ego-depleted, the more negative mistreatment experiences they reported during the day the more they drank that evening. In addition, negative mistreatment experiences were positively related to binge drinking on days students were high in ego-depletion but were negatively related to binge drinking on days students were low in ego-depletion. Perceiving mistreatment leads to increased drinking only on days that people do not have the cognitive resources to cope with being discriminated against more adaptively.