Maya Coe, Kaitlyn Linker, Natalia Mullings, Aneisha Williams
Abstract: Minority groups are known to face discrimination throughout history. We also found that discrimination often leads to emotional suppression. We wanted to see if this would then lead to alcohol use. Second semester Muhlenberg College students answered a survey measuring emotional suppression and alcohol use. The Emotional Suppression was measured using an adapted version of the suppression subscale from the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (EQR) developed by Gross and John (2003) and Emotion Regulation of Other and Self (EROS) scale developed by Niven et. al. (2011). To measure alcohol consumption, we used the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) developed by Saunders et al. (1993). The participants then completed the demographic section which asked about their race, sexual identity, gender and age. We hypothesized that habitually practiced emotional suppression among racial minority college students will be positively correlated to greater alcohol use in a permissive drinking environment, compared to non minority students, with emotional suppression mediating the relationship between identity and alcohol consumption. Our study will contribute to understanding how emotional regulation skills affect students in a transitional time of their lives along with the role of discrimination.
