Beginning to Explain Differences in Risky Alcohol Consumption Behaviors Across Hospitality Business and Non-Hospitality Business Populations Using the Vollrath and Torgersen Personality Typology

This presentation will provide a brief review of research on alcohol consumption among college-age populations followed by a brief review of research on alcohol consumption specific to hospitality business sub-populations. This review will establish that the hospitality business sub-population engages in a higher rate of unhealthy and hazardous alcohol consumption than comparable non-hospitality populations, and that the attempts to explain the disparity in alcohol consumption have yet to yield much meaningful results. Subsequent to the alcohol consumption literature, the discussion will focus on the general association between personality, stress, and coping, but will specifically draw from the literature on personality typologies in a new attempt to start to explain why hospitality business populations appear to be more likely to engage in harmful and hazardous alcohol consumption than comparable non-hospitality business populations.