Situations Conducive towards College Drinking: Examining the Elements of the Routine Activity Theory of General Deviance

• In Event: Alcohol and Crime

Abstract

The routine activity theory of general deviance (RATGD) proposes that certain situational conditions are conducive towards deviance. These situational elements include spending time with peers, while engaged in an activity that has no agenda for how time is spent, and authority figures are absent. While there is strong support for RATGD, prior research is limited. First, RATGD argues that behavior is directly influenced by the activity setting, yet few scholars have access to situational data. This not only limits the ability to test whether deviance occurs during unstructured socializing, but also the ability to examine the relative contribution of each of the underlying concepts. Second, most researchers have relied on samples of adolescents. As a result, little is known about the relationship between deviance and the kinds of peers and situations that facilitate delinquency among young adults. We overcome these limitations by testing a variety of measures that include combinations of peer roles, locations, and activity types on college drinking using real-time data collected in “bursts” across the freshman year. We estimate which aspects of unstructured socializing with peers in the absence of authority figures are conducive to college drinking through fixed-effects models. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Authors

• Timothy C. Barnum, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Amy L. Anderson, University of Nebraska at Omaha