Abstract

This study was intended to study the effects of individuals' personality traits and life events on drinking motives. Personality traits were measured using Type A personality and big-five personality factors (extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect) and life events were measured using 17 conflict life events. Correlational analyses, based on the data from 400 university students, showed that personality traits and life events were related to drinking motives. Stepwise regression analyses, with personality traits and life events as predictors, showed that personality traits and life events predicted drinking motives. Among all the predictors, a smoking problem had the largest effect on explaining drinking motives. Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to examine if life events contribute a significant amount of incremental variance to the prediction of drinking motives after entering personality traits first. Results showed that life events added a significant amount of incremental variance to the prediction of all six factors of drinking motives. Implications and limitations of the results and suggestions for future study were discussed.