Abstract
BACKGROUND: Drinking is a public health concern among college students. Viewing and posting alcohol-related content (ARC) on social media may influence students' favorable prototypes of people who post, thereby impacting their drinking. This study created a measure to explore students' ARC poster prototypes. We validated our measure by examining the prototypes as mediators of the associations between viewing and posting ARC and drinking behaviors. METHODS: Students (N = 8065) were asked to complete measures related to viewing and posting ARC, drinking behaviors, and adjectives that described their perceptions of the prototypical college student who posts ARC on social media. RESULTS: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis yielded three prototypical images of students who post ARC on social media: hedonistic, despondent, and sociable. There were significant pathways between viewing and posting ARC and drinking. The sociable prototype emerged as a significant mediator of the association between ARC viewing and posting and drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the role of students' poster prototypes may be important for informing targeted interventions. Our results indicate that the underlying reason for increased drinking among students with greater ARC engagement is that they perceived other ARC viewers and posters as being more sociable. Future research may focus on modifying these perceptions.