Abstract
The purpose of this paper was to assess the impact of public self-consciousness and a cross-situational
reactivity to embarrassing encounters on alcohol consumption among college students. Extending
prior analyses of the relationship between public self-awareness and alcohol use, we examined the role
of perceived peer drinking as a potential conditioning variable. Drawing on the central tenets of
tension-reduction and self-presentational models, we tested competing sets of hypotheses concerning
the relationship between beliefs about normative drinking practices, public self-consciousness,
embarrassability, and drinking behavior. The analysis of self-report data from two undergraduate
samples (n=276 and n=149) suggested that public self-consciousness and embarrassability affect
alcohol use primarily among students with friends who drink heavily. Among these individuals,
embarrassability moderated the public self-consciousness-alcohol use relationship in a manner
consistent with the predictions of self-presentational theories. While individuals high in public self-
consciousness who exhibited little reactivity to embarrassing situations were heavy drinkers, public
self-consciousness was associated with low levels of alcohol consumption among students high in
embarrassability. Neither set of analyses supported the tension-reduction hypothesis.
Convention