There have been a few reports recently about the increase in binge drinking among college students (here’s a sample piece). Apparently half of American college students now meet the criteria for alcohol/drug dependencies. Here at Cornell about a third of the students binge drink, with much higher rates for certain parts of the population (e.g., 72% of sorority women).
Tragic as the situation is, this is not what really disturbs me right now. Rather, what really disturbs me is that it seems to be common wisdom around here that we have this problem because the legal drinking age is 21. As the argument goes, if we lowered the age limit, we wouldn’t have problems with binge drinking because kids would learn to drink responsibly from their parents. Often this argument comes with the claim that in Europe binge drinking isn’t so much of a problem because kids start drinking earlier. I’ve heard this argument over and over again in countless contexts, from undergraduates, from my graduate student colleagues, from faculty members, in the papers, etc., etc. Now perhaps the argument isn’t utterly absurd on the surface, though it does strike me as betraying a serious lack of understanding of human psychology. But you don’t have to look at much evidence to realize that there might be some problems with it.
Let’s start with the claim that binge drinking isn’t as much of a problem in Europe. Why is alcohol poisoning one of the leading causes of death in Europe then (in some Eastern European countries it’s been the leading cause for young men)? Why is the life expectancy in parts of Glasgow lower than it is in, say, Iraq, Algeria, and Vietnam? As far as I can tell, every piece of actual research is going to tell you the opposite of what standard wisdom says.
I find this amazing capacity that humans have to confidently believe things that fly in the face of all the evidence rather worrisome. How are we ever supposed to be able to make intelligent, informed decisions about genuinely complicated social and political matters if we can’t even get the most obvious things right? In my time at Cornell, I’ve only heard one person question the received wisdom about binge drinking and age limits. And he was an old professor whose views on these sorts of matters are generally dismissed with a few jokes and some laughing. So much for the purported ability of intelligent people to avoid being deceived by ludicrous falsehoods.
Sydney
Alan Schmierer
I don’t think you mean alcohol dependence (= addiction), but probably alcohol abuse (incl. things like binge drinking).
As for the stats about Europe: could alcohol be so high b/c they don’t have guns (which prob. surpass it here)? Also, have you seen the alcohol they drink in Eastern Europe? That stuff can make you blind! I’m sure it’s not well-regulated/pure/easy to OD on.
That said, I’m not sure lowering the drinking age would help. The only thing that might achieve would be that they get it out of their system earlier. Although the combination of “freedom from parents” AND “availability of booze” might contribute to unusually high rates of drinking early in college. It’s hard to say…
-L
After living in England for a year, I feel comfortable saying that I knew just as many binge drinkers there as I do here.
I think Americans have an obsession with studies. We have a million research firms that get government money to study how fat we are, how much we drink, how tall we are, whether eggs are now good for us or back to being bad for us, etc. I think we do it because it makes us feel like we’re accomplishing something by reporting these facts.
First, I think that same obsession with studies about all our problems hasn’t hit Europe. Second, I think a lot of public welfare issues are just starting to catch on there. Within the last year, they have finally caught on to the idea that maybe drinking yourself to the ER isn’t such a hot idea. BBC News has reported a lot of “new” studies this year. There are actually all kinds of studies within the last year about how Scottish adults have drinking problems, as well as college binge drinkers too. The EU has also recently received reports from a study they commissioned about drinking problems among its citizens.
I don’t mean this as criticism of Europe, I think there is just a cultural difference in some of the ways we go about discovering these things.
So ultimately, though I think some of the initial “forbidden fruit” thrill doesn’t exist in Europe, the idea that they are the model for behavior is flawed (in my opinion).
Good point about the distinction between alcohol dependence and abuse. I think the report that I pulled the stat from did say alcohol dependence, but you’re right to note that doesn’t seem plausible. Unfortunately, I can’t find the report now that I got the stat from (it’s not the same one that I got the other information from and to which I provided a link). Anyway, all the other data I’ve seen indicates that whatever the report said, what had to be meant was substance abuse. Dependence rates are typically in the 6-20% range, I think, depending on exactly how dependency gets defined.
Europeans don’t have guns?? Okay, so Americans have more of them. But I doubt that that will explain what’s going on. First, deaths from guns aren’t the leading cause of death for young adults in the U.S. (the relevant comparison class, I take it, since the high mortality rates in Europe from alcohol are concentrated in the young adult part of the population). According to the NAHIC, homicide comes in after, in order, non-injury causes, motor vehicle accidents, suicide, and non-motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death for young white males. Among adolescents and young adults generally, homicide is the third leading cause but that’s mostly because of incredibly high homicide rates among black males. Given the large number of motor vehicle accidents that involve alcohol, I suspect that alcohol surpasses guns in the U.S. as well. Not to mention that alcohol is undoubtedly involved in a good many of the gun incidents.
Anyway, I don’t need to rely on relative measurements like that. Just the absolute number of binge drinkers in the U.S. and in European countries will make my point (see my next post for more on that).
As it happens, I don’t think a high drinking age is going to do much to curb alcohol abuse either (though there is some, albeit controversial, evidence that it significantly reduces deaths from motor vehicle evidence). I just think that the argument (see, e.g., here) that a lower limit will significantly solve problems is silly. Any real solutions will have to be found elsewhere.
– Sydney
Regarding Heidi’s comments, see here for a call from doctors to raise the drinking age in Britain. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Europeans raised their drinking limits as Americans lowered theirs because the European system ostensibly works so much better?
-Sydney
Hey Sydney,
If you’ve “only heard one person question the received wisdom about binge drinking and age limits,” you must not have talked with me about it, because my time in Cambridge left me more than skeptical about it. As far as I can tell, it’s completely normal there to binge drink at least four or five nights a week, because “we work so hard that we NEED it.” Uh huh …
— A.
You’re right, I haven’t talked to you about this. Where were you when I was having these conversations in the lounge? If I’d had some moral support then, I might have a less cynical view of human rationality now.
– Sydney
(1) In general, if I am a better practitioner of human rationality than others you have encountered, woe unto us.
(2) As you know, I drink about as little as Erin and you (perhaps more — but certainly I don’t exceed one alcoholic drink a month, and rarely have even that much). So, there are two ways of taking the fact that we three (and I think Rachel, who’s a confirmed teetotaller) are lined up on one side, and the people who enjoy partaking on the other. One is that they’re blinded by their own interests and perhaps character flaws, while we can see the truth. The other is that both sides are invested enough in their own beliefs, decisions, characters, etc. that we’ll all just see what we’re looking for. Now, I am not quite cynical enough about human rationality to opt automatically for the latter. After all, I am quite a bit less invested in not drinking than most people who drink seem to be in drinking, so even if I have some general evidence that bears on the case, I don’t have sufficient reason to discount my own evaluation of this particular situation — so it seems to me. But I do sometimes wonder whether perhaps I ought to be more skeptical about my own motivations, in ways that are likely to undermine the conclusions I come to.
What do you think? How much weight does the general skeptical-cynical consideration bear?
— A.
Despite my cynical streak, I’m not cynical enough to think that people will just always believe whatever beliefs would be convenient for them (of course, I might combine cynicism and arrogance, in which case it would only be other people who have that tragic failing). Perhaps this happens disappointingly infrequently, but haven’t we all on occasion known somebody to come to believe an uncomfortable/unpleasant truth and to then adjust their life accordingly? At any rate, if people really always believe what they are looking for, it seems there would be no point in thinking about things. But I’m not willing to give up on thinking just yet, so I’ll adopt the convenient belief that people can sometimes overcome biases and such.
Also, I think there is some evidence to show that biased people are still very good at certain rational processes. That is, the objections they raise to their opponents actually are generally good objections. Where their rationality fails them is in critically evaluating their own position. I take it this is what is happening when, for example, people are presented with the same data regarding the effectiveness of capital punishment and both the pro and con sides become even more convinced that they are right. That is, the data enabled both sides to detect flaws in their opponents’ position, which then made them feel more secure about their own side. Of course, all the while both sides failed to notice problems that the data caused for their own positions.
Upshot? People who disagree need to talk to each other. If you and I are on opposite sides of a dispute, I’ll be really, really good at figuring out where your arguments don’t make sense and you’ll be really, really good at figuring out where my arguments don’t make sense.
Given how much I like arguing, this sounds like another convenient truth …
Sydney
P.S. If you’re really interested in this, Thomas Kelly has an intriguing paper about belief polarization and rationality.