One reason that the book, Psychology: themes and variations, discusses is that there are incentive theories. These theories emphasizes that the enviroment can play a huge role on a particular behavior. In other words students who recieve pressure from their friends to drink are more likely to do it then if they were by themselves. Another thing that students tend to yield to is conformity, which means that people or students give in to social pressure whether its real or made up. We humans feel a need to be socially accepted by people that we feel comfortable and able to have fun with. I believe that some college students drink because they feel that is how they will be accepted by a group.

According to the journal of studies on alcohol and drugs, there are social norms that can predict what college students are more likely to become heavy drinkers. They believe that there are descriptive drinking norms that describe how one may act when they percieve a certain action for instance heavy drinking is socially acceptable even when it might not be. Their reseach shows that the college students who had a higher perceived descriptive norm of alcohol use amoung their peers drank more has a result. This is important because if we are able to inform these students of this false belief then we can hopefully decrease the alcohol use amoung students.

This just goes to show you what you give up when you become addicted to alcohol and the impact it has on your life. It leaves more than just physical scars but social ones as well. I believe that we humans need a social connection in life in order to find meaning. Without that bond than we are alone without any support system. The more we can learn what kind of effects alcohol addiction can have on someone's social life the better we can help them.

Biological Causes

Biological causes can be described as, physiological bases of behavior in humans. The biological perspective can be defined as an organism's functioning in terms of the bodily structures and biochemical processes that underlie behavior. Some say that the biological causes of alcoholism can be inherited and some argue that it can also be a result of chemical reasons.

The Biological Path

• Chronic exposure causes membranes to adapt
• Membranes then become rigid, increasing cholesterol and other constituents
• As cholesterol increases, a person will become more tolerant to a given dose of alcohol and lead to dependence

- Dependence is caused when the neuronal membranes need alcohol for normal functioning

• As dependence is occuring, the stomach, liver, and other parts of the body begin to break down as a result

With some saying alcoholism is inherited and some that believe it is chemically developed, both may be right. Studies show that about 40 percent of alcoholics may have been born with biological traits that eventually led them to alocholism. Other's seem to drink to help solve depression and other psychological distresses.

Blakeslee, S., Noble, E., Bloom, F. (Aug. 14,1984).-New York Times.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A06E2DE1538F937A2575BC0A962948260.

Learning Causes

Tolerance to alcohol is not simply a phsychological adaptive phenomenom but one in which learning plays a significant role.

Being raised by alcoholic parents increases the risk of adverse adult outcomes although impairment is not inevitable. Practitioners could benefit from knowing whether offspring of alcoholic parents cope differently so that they could avoid underestimating or overestimating the effect of parental alcoholism on clients. Among women with alcoholic parents, race differences in coping are unclear. Black women, less studied than white women, might cope more effectively because of greater support from kin or less effectively because of lower socioeconomic status and their likely experiences of racism and discrimination. Although, commonalities in the experience of living with alcoholic parents may reduce coping differences between black and white women. Understanding racial differences could help practitioner’s better focus mental health treatment and prevention approaches, targeting services to those in need.

Groups such as Italians, Greeks, Chinese and the people from Jewish decent, who have few drinking related problems, tend to share some common characteristics. Alcohol is neither seen as a poison or a magic potent, there is little or no social pressure to drink, irresponsible behavior is never tolerated, young people learn at home from their parents and from other adults how to handle alcohol in a responsible manner, there is societal consensus on what constitutes responsible drinking.

Under the current law, parents' hands are tied. Instead of being able to introduce their children to responsible alcohol use in the home, they are forced to leave initial exposure to the child's first drinking experiences to college, the military, or elsewhere. More likely than not, these experiences expose young people to drinking behaviors that are risky, reckless, and, worst of all, unsupervised.

Cognition Causes

What is cognition?

Cognition is the mental process involved in acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

When growing up as you try to make sense of the world, you learn through your experiencs of sight, taste, smell, feeling, and hearing.

Whats is a social process?

A social process is activties, action, and operations that invole the interaction between people.

The causes of alcoholism can come from many sources, of social learning processes such as:

• The media
• TV
• Movies
• Friends
• Family

You watch, experience and learn from each of these five social processes. Which in the long run can and will have a major impact on

who you are, and your preferences and dislikes of alcohol. Drinking alcohol causes poor cognitive, behavioral, and emotional functioning

skills, which are needed in various ways throughout our lives.

Cognition connects with alcoholism by social learnings processes,

like the media, TV, movies, friends aand family, and our experiences

in our lives.