Change Talk: Is it just talk, or is it changing a lifestyle?

College is a time in life that is notoriously known for partaking in binge drinking. Nothing good ever comes from binge drinking and many times college students get in trouble with their university for alcohol use. With this knowledge Timothy R. Apodaca and colleagues conducted a study on how to effectively communicate with college students who had broken campus alcohol rules to reduce incidences related to future alcohol use. This study had a sample size of 92 college students who had violated a college campus alcohol policy. In this study they had the college students take part in a Brief Motivational Intervention. This consisted of a one time one-on-one session between a counselor and student. They recorded each session and decoded the student’s linguistics as “change talk” or “sustain talk”. Change talk consists of oneself verbalizing talk that encourages change, while sustain talk is a person’s reasons for not changing. They asked six different questions to the students such as the event and how their loved ones felt about alcohol use.

Students had to complete follow up assessments 3 and 12 months after their Brief Motivational Intervention, and the observers learned that change talk reduced the frequency of alcohol related incidences in college students. These findings implicate that depending on how one discusses their alcohol related situation could greatly impact how they use alcohol in the future. This is a positive result, however it has many limitations.

First off, the sample consisted of only 92 college students from the same college; this is not an accurate representation of all college students in the United States. Also, the study did not represent our diverse population very well since the majority of participants were of Caucasian descent. I personally believe that there are many other contributing factors such as how severe the alcohol related incidence was, what kind of mindset the student already has (positive or negative), what type of peers they interact with, etc. Overall, I believe more studies need to be done on this subject with larger and more diverse sample sizes and there should be more preliminary assessments done.

Abstract

Source:

Sustain talk predicts poorer outcomes among mandated college student drinkers receiving a brief motivational intervention.

Apodaca, Timothy R.; Borsari, Brian; Jackson, Kristina M.; Magill, Molly; Longabaugh, Richard; Mastroleo, Nadine R.; Barnett, Nancy P.

Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Vol 28(3), Sep 2014, 631-638. doi: 10.1037/a0037296