Published on February 19th 2018 – On Wednesday February 14 2018, Elroy Boers defended his dissertation entitled: ‘Interpersonal communication among vocational community college students about alcohol use and binge drinking: Causality, content, and conversation partner’. The overall aim of his dissertation was to further our understanding of the effects of interpersonal communication about binge drinking among vocational communication college students, particularly the influence of the popularity of the conversation partner.
Supervised by Bas van den Putte (ACHC board), Hans Beentjes and Hanneke Hendriks (ACHC member) Elroy’s dissertation showed that the majority of vocational communication college students believed they had positive conversations about binge drinking, which led them to have more positive attitudes and intentions towards binge drinking. Those effects were particularly pronounced when one had had talked to a popular conversation partner. The results imply that binge drinking among vocational communication college students can be reduced and/or prevented by stimulating them to talk negatively about binge drinking, preferably with a peer who is considered to be popular.
Elroy was also interviewed by Trouw (in Dutch) – click here
The digital version of the dissertation can be downloaded here.