Kara Pado, second year Master’s student, presented the latest updates on her thesis proposal, Identifying the tipping point of recognition of alcohol abuse symptoms in undergraduate students. The purpose of Kara’s Master’s thesis is to identify tipping points in perceptions of alcohol abuse symptomatology by examining undergraduate students’ self-perceptions of alcohol consumption and perceptions of their peers’ consumption. Tipping points are generally defined as a moment of revelation that indicates a major change; however, it can differ in interpretation depending on the field of study. Alcohol usage and subsequent symptomatology, parental alcohol permissiveness and usage, and tipping point were measured through an assessment. Kara collected data from 354 undergraduate students at Oakland University which were recruited through an online study link in SONA. Participants identified how many drinks per day and duration of behavior required to be considered concerning, through both self-evaluation and evaluation of their peers.
Through the initial data analysis, Kara has discovered participants will identify a tipping point of an alcohol problem developing in themselves earlier than in their peers. Another interesting finding was peer tipping points were significantly influenced by parental permissiveness, while self tipping points were not. She will be performing further data analysis on additional data that was collected.
The future directions of her study will be expanding to other colleges and universities in the hopes to have more diverse samples, exploring gender-specific habits and outcomes, and collecting self-efficacy data. Through her research, Kara aspires to contribute to the understanding of tipping points in psychology and the impact of exposure to alcohol on perceptions of developing a problem along with potential clinical applications to decrease alcohol use disorder on college campuses. We are looking forward to hearing more about your findings, Kara!
FF-PTG LAB 