Poor Pouring Peers: The Effects of Behavioral Skills Training (BST) and Peer Modeling on College Students’ Pours of Standard Servings of Beer

Excessive alcohol consumption among college students often results in negative consequences (e.g., driving drunk, injury, sexual assault). Campus alcohol education courses aim to teach students to accurately identify and pour standard servings, because counting drinks has been identified as a protective strategy against risky drinking. However, few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of teaching this skill, and no published studies have evaluated the use of behavioral skills training (BST) for this purpose. Moreover, it is unclear whether observing peer models’ inaccurate behavior (e.g., during a group training class) would negate the positive effects of BST. We used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across subjects design to investigate (1) the effectiveness of BST to individually teach college students (N = 19) to accurately pour standard servings of beer (12 fl oz), and (2) the effects of peer modeling on skill maintenance immediately following BST. Following BST, participants partook in a “group training” in which they observed two confederate “peers” over-pour, under-pour, or pour accurately. Participants who poured inaccurately at baseline (n = 17), poured accurately post-training, and all participants (N = 19) maintained accurate pouring, regardless of peer presence or pouring behavior. These results suggest BST is effective for teaching college students to pour standard servings of beer. Directions for future research include evaluating use of BST in alcohol education courses, with different alcohol types and vessels, and maintenance in naturalistic settings