Who drinks and why? A review of socio-demographic, personality, and contextual issues behind the drinking motives in young people Emmanuel Kuntsche a, * , Ronald Knibbe b , Gerhard Gmel a , Rutger Engels c a Research Department, Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems (SIPA), PO Box 870, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland b Department of Medical Sociology, PO Box 616, University of Maastricht, 6200 Maastricht, The Netherlands c Behavioural Science Institute, PO Box 9104, Radboud University, 6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands Abstract The aim was to review the empirical research carried out over the last 15 years on the characteristics of young people (10- to 25-year olds) who have specific motives for drinking. In a computer-assisted search of relevant literature, 82 studies were identified. Concerning demographic factors, a developmental trend was found — from general, undifferentiated drinking motives in late childhood and early adolescence to more gender-specific drinking motives in subsequent years. With regard to personality factors, two specific patterns can be distinguished: extraversion and sensation-seeking correlate with enhancement motives, while neuroticism and anxiety correlate most strongly with coping motives. For contextual factors, drinking motives were found to vary across countries but not among different ethnic groups in the same culture. Based on these results, preventive strategies should take into account general, undifferentiated drinking motivation in late childhood, and social and enhancement motives in adolescence, particularly among boys. Findings on personality indicate that it would be useful to focus on extraverted, sensation-seeking boys who drink for enhancement motives and neurotic, anxious girls who drink for coping motives. D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Drinking motives; Reasons for drinking; Personality; Adolescents; Literature review 0306-4603/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2005.12.028 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 21 321 29 52; fax: +41 21 321 29 40. E-mail addresses: ekuntsche@sfa-ispa.ch (E. Kuntsche)8 R.Knibbe@zw.unimaas.nl (R. Knibbe)8 ggmel@sfa-ispa.ch (G. Gmel)8 R.Engels@bsi.ru.nl (R. Engels). Addictive Behaviors 31 (2006) 1844 – 1857