The role of drinking motives and perceived controllability of events in the association between college women's sexual assault victimization and binge drinking

Women with a history of sexual assault are at elevated risk for engaging in binge drinking. The aims of the current study are to investigate two types of drinking motives (coping and social) that potentially underlie the sexual assault-binge drinking link in a sample of female college drinkers (N = 691; 37.6% sexual assault prevalence), and to determine the extent to which the relationships between sexual assault history and each type of drinking motive depend on women's assumptions about the controllability of events. Conditional process analysis results indicated that women who experienced sexual assault (vs. those who did not) were more likely to report both coping and social drinking motives, which in turn, were both positively associated with increased binge drinking. Consistent with our hypothesis, results showed the relationship between sexual assault history and coping drinking motives was moderated by perceived controllability of events. Specifically, sexual assault victims reported high coping motives regardless of controllability of events. Nonvictims only reported high coping motives when their perceived controllability of events was low – comparable to coping motives of victims. This integrative approach affords a more comprehensive understanding of the context in which college women's binge drinking occurs, and offers insight into processes that could be targeted in interventions.