People of class drink alcohol

[Requia ☣]

It has to do with Hawk saying he doesn't think education and drinking habits are correlated, then telling us about the bars he's been too in order to back this up.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It has to do with Hawk saying he doesn't think education and drinking habits are correlated, then telling us about the bars he's been too in order to back this up.

Oh, OK, so basically you were saying that observing behavior in bars is irrelevant to the study. Gotcha!

[Requia ☣]

Somebody mentioned a possible link between College and drinking, so I ran the GSS data with education (highest grade completed) as a control.

In the high school graduate/no college range, the correlation is still there.

There /is/ a correlation with highest level of education and alcohol though.  74.6 of high school grads drink, 82.3% of the college grads do, only 54% of people without a high school diploma drink.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That is really interesting.

[Doktor Howl]

True, but the point is that if you only look at people in bars, then you will find a higher number of drinkers than if you look at all people in a demographic, regardless of whether or not they go to bars.

Yeah.  So you take that group, and figure out what their education levels are.  I fail to see a problem.

[Requia ☣]

Hmm, point, though that data was not provided.

[Doktor Howl]

Hmm, point, though that data was not provided.

We maintenance geeks are used to looking at things all backwards.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

True, but the point is that if you only look at people in bars, then you will find a higher number of drinkers than if you look at all people in a demographic, regardless of whether or not they go to bars.

Yeah.  So you take that group, and figure out what their education levels are.  I fail to see a problem.

There are a number of problems. For one thing, the study was on IQ and drinking, not education level and drinking. Also you may be accidentally excluding introverted people, and people who fall at either end of the income spectrum; those who either don't have enough money to go to a bar, or who have enough money that they are more likely to attend private parties.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The original study probably provides all KINDS of interesting information and correlations not covered by the rather skimpy article.

[Requia ☣]

That article is the study, sortof.  Its using data from a different study.  There was a link to that (where I got my information on high school grads) all the data, and tools to plot and so forth, can be found here.

[AFK]

Somebody mentioned a possible link between College and drinking, so I ran the GSS data with education (highest grade completed) as a control.

In the high school graduate/no college range, the correlation is still there.

There /is/ a correlation with highest level of education and alcohol though.  74.6 of high school grads drink, 82.3% of the college grads do, only 54% of people without a high school diploma drink.

The clincher would be to look at the cohort of people who graduate from high school but don't go on to college.

A lot of heavy drinking habits are established in college.  It is a social event.  In high school it is as well, but there are more barriers because kids are living under their parents roofs and, well, they are in high school.  The opportunities for unsupervised social drinking are fewer compared to college dorms where you are away from your parents, and there isn't a lot of effort put into discouraging underage drinking. 

Now, the person who doesn't go to college may have a circle of friends and engage in social drinking.  But this person is going to need some kind of income which means they will likely have some kind of job which, again, will provide less opportunities for social drinking. 

So, basically, in a nut shell, when you are looking at mental capacity and drinking, what I think you are really seeing isn't necessarily the IQ itself making one prone to drinking, but the opportunities for that person (e.g. College) laying the groundwork for more opportunities to engage in heavy and social drinking. 

[Adios]

Hmm, point, though that data was not provided.

Here I must agree. My only data is personal observations. Here in  we have a place called . It is about 6 blocks of mostly bars close to . Even I don't go there on the weekends. ESPECIALLY when  plays  here. I am way past the puking and fighting stage and I have already seen plenty of boobs in my lifetime.

[LMNO]

Well, what about any of the "restaurant rows" in any major city?

For example, in Boston's South End, there is a four to six block area that is packed with medium-to-high end eateries.  And everyone there is drinking.  To be sure, most aren't binge drinking (which I assume is happening in Aggieville), but they are drinking.  And unlike Aggieville, those places do heavy business every night of the week, not just on weekends.


Or, perhaps we could take my parents as an example.  They have had wine with dinner every night of the week for the past 40 years.  Can't rule out that type of drinker, either.

[AFK]

That goes back to one of my earlier questions/comments. 

How you define "drinking" matters.  You can't really lump the casual drinker in with the weekend social drinker with the 7 day a week-drink it like it's water drinker. 

In my line of work of course we look at adolescent drinking and the general idea is that any kind of drinking isn't a good thing.  However, we still have different strata of adolescent drinkers.  We look at life time use and ask kids how many times they've ever used alcohol.  We then look at frequency by asking if they drank in the past 30 days, and then we ask about binge drinking, drinking more 5 or more drinks in a sitting. 

You need to do that same thing with adults, I think, to get more meaningful data.  So what I'd really like to know, going back to this IQ/WORDSUM thing, is that how many of the 70-80% of high scoring WORDSUM drinkers binge drink? How many of them just have wine with dinner?  How many of them just have a few during the weekend? 

[Adios]

Wasn't there a study back in the dark ages about more intelligent people being more likely to use drugs simply out of boredom? I have a formal 9th grade education with a GED and some junior college. I drink 7 evenings a week on average of about 3 -4 drinks per night. I am reasonably intelligent but sadly under educated.