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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

St. Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Area Studies

Energy drinks consumption among different social groups: motivations, factors and norms

Field of study: 39.03.01 Sociology

Ksenia Eritsyan

Saint Petersburg 2020

Contents

• Introduction
• Research questions
• Definitions of terms
• Literature review
• Theoretical framework
• Empirical evidence
• Methods1
• Analysis of forum materials and marketing research
• Analysis of interview data
• Survey database analysis
• Results
• Forums
• Marketing reports
• Interview analysis
• Discussion
• References
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D


Introduction

Definitions of terms

To understand the research strategy, it is necessary to define the main terms of this work.

The concept of a norm in the scientific world also has multiple definitions. Thus, according to Parsons ' theory (Elster, 1989), a norm is a description of a specific mode of action that is considered socially desirable. The group identity theory defines norms as collective beliefs about what actions are appropriate in a group and does not violate its integrity (Jaspars, 1982). The rational choice theory asserts that norms are a “utilitarian behavioral strategy” that helps to avoid the application of negative social sanctions (Coleman, 1989). Thus, in this paper, the norms are defined as socially desirable behavior, the violation of which leads to the application of various negative sanctions (Pikunova, 2019).

Factors in this article are considered as elements of an individual's life, facts, and experiences that affect the personality and lifestyle, and motivations are self-expressed beliefs of an individual associated with performance behavior and the desire to achieve a goal (Pikunova, 2020).

Literature review

Theoretical framework

The globalization of the supply chain, the transition to a society of product abundance, and the development of supply chains have increased the importance of the topic of consumption in the scientific world. Accordingly, this topic has attracted the attention of sociologists relatively recently (Pikunova, 2019).

Within the framework of sociology, the economic, cultural, and social characteristics of the individual and, consequently, the individuals belonging to a social group played a major role throughout the research process on this topic. In this sense, belonging to a social group determines an individual's lifestyle, which, for example, according to Weber (1946), is directly related to many areas of life: how a person dresses, how he or she spends his leisure time, what his or her level of education and occupation is, what they eat, etc.

Veblen (1973) also addressed the concept of lifestyle as part of the theory of conspicuous consumption. In his concept, individuals vie with each other for a place in the social structure and for various benefits. Using certain products and resources that relate to the lifestyle of a certain group helps to “demonstrate” that a person belongs to a certain circle of people. Here, the main focus is the percolation of consumption trends and rules from the upper to the lower strata, as well as the consumption of luxury goods, which makes the theory limited.

Consumption practices represent various patterns, rituals, habits, and establish social structure and order. Thus, Bourdieu (1984) believes that the lifestyle of an individual is one of the most important indicators of a person's position in society. Having grown out of the social context, the lifestyle is presented through a series of constant personal choices and forms a certain framework for consumption that limits the consumption of some groups and promotes the consumption of others, in other words, a lifestyle is a “set of distinctive preferences” that demonstrates the same intentions.

According to Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984), a person's position is determined by the quantity and quality of capital that an individual possesses: economic (access to various resources), social (relationships with other people), and cultural capital (cultural knowledge, skills, and experience). It is important to note that the latter, according to the sociologist, can be interpreted as the ability to determine which culture is legitimate, and develops unconsciously and takes roots from socialization (in the family, school, and so on). According to Bourdieu's terminology (Bourdieu & Nice, 1977), this is how the “habitus” of a social group is created and reproduced. Habitus is the worldview and predispositions of people, their cognitive base, which represents the attitudes and social world of individuals. Habitus forms the tastes and consumer preferences of an individual repeats with subsequent generations and is deeply entrenched socially.

Another related concept of the “field” (Bourdieu, 1990), that is, the context in which social action is performed, is also useful in explaining consumer behavior - so, according to Bourdieu, the sphere of consumption is the “field” of power interactions and relations of struggle - individuals with the largest amount of capital define and impose certain “rules” regarding preferences, create a hierarchy of consumer norms.

Thus, Bourdieu in his theory connects the individual level of influence and structure.

Since, in my opinion, the consumption of energy drinks cannot be explained only by the immediate physical need (for example, increasing of alertness), I believe that it is necessary to study a range of factors not only at the micro-level but also at the macro-level, that is, the broader influence exerted by the social environment. I believe that Bourdieu's approach for lifestyle and consumption is the most appropriate theoretical framework for this type of research.

Empirical evidence

Methods

This paper tracks two areas of research: first, identifying the social groups that are the main consumers of energy drinks, and second, investigating why and how this use occurs.

To better understand the problem and consider different perspectives on energy drink consumption, this study uses a mixed-method approach and consists of several consecutive parts: (1) analysis of the Internet space by searching for active forums discussing the use of energy drinks and analysis of marketing research, through which the main groups of consumers will be identified (a quantitative part), and (2) empirical study of students - the group which was identified on the first stage as one of the important - through the analysis of secondary data - qualitative interview data collected by the project team among students (a qualitative part) and survey data of substance use monitoring study (alcohol, cigarettes, energy drinks, etc.) among students as well (a quantitative part).

This research is conducted in Russian realities, since, according to what was said earlier, there is a lack of such domestic research in the scientific world. Thus, St. Petersburg is the main field for studying in this work since this city is a metropolis, which allows different social groups to perform different identities and choose life trajectories.

Analysis of forum materials and marketing research

To answer the first research question, the data from Internet sites which include discussions about energy drink consumption was used. In this way, to find these pages two largest Russian search engines - Google and Yandex - were taken into account. The search query was “energy drinks forum” in Russian (the more informal version of “energitiki” was not used since it has a double meaning and often produces results related to the energy industry) to cover the main topic of discussion without specifying it and get the most complete coverage of the issues and topics considered in these pages, and to indicate “forums” since the main interest was the sharing of opinions and personal experiences.

The limit on the number of links was 20 since links after this threshold were less active and informative, and often included articles, product ads, and links to official websites of various brands. It is important to note that Yandex has issued the largest number of forums, while Google showed a great number of pages without discussion, not matching the selection criteria. Then the data was cleared-duplicate links (only one link was repeated on two search platforms), forums without discussion, articles, advertising pages, inactive links were removed. The remaining forums were divided into sections depending on the type and theme of the forum and analyzed for the various consumer group, the issue of discussion, activity, and repetitive practices related to the consumption of energy drinks (Table A1). In total, 26 forums were found. The summarized information is presented in Table 1.

Table 1

Forum materials: descriptive information

Next, the analysis of marketing research was carried out in the search engine Google and Google Scholar using the query “marketing research energy drinks”. The results included market research results, articles including statistics from market research, and advertising articles. Only sources that included information about users were considered.

Together with the examination of studies, it was concluded which groups are the potential predominant majority among consumers.

Analysis of interview data

Since young people are the main object of research in scientific papers on the consumption of energy drinks, as well as the main group of consumers identified at the stage of analysis of forum materials, it was decided to focus on them. To conduct a deeper analysis of consumption practices and answer the second research question, students - representatives of a group of young people with the most diverse backgrounds and representing different social groups - were selected.

Thus, the next step was to work with secondary data obtained in qualitative research. In total, the set consisted of 20 interviews, 18 of which were collected in the course of the HSE St. Petersburg educational project “Youth consumption of energy drinks: everyday practices, personal meaning, and socio-cultural determination” by students of 2-4 courses under the guidance of K. Y. Yeritsyan in 2017-2018. My contribution was 5 interviews collected - 3 of them conducted during the project work and 2 interviews collected for the course paper. The interview was conducted with students of Saint Petersburg universities aged 17 to 25 using purposeful sampling the principle of which is to select information-rich and significant cases related to the phenomenon of interest (Palinkas et al., 2015). Data collection was conducted using a semi-structured interview. Recruitment methods were based on the use of screening respondents and searching for respondents among personal contacts. Thus, the screening elements were: 1) age (from 17 to 25); 2) being a student; 3) consumption of energy drinks at least once in the last month (to study current and active consumption). All interviews were conducted using the face-to-face method to establish a more trusting relationship between the respondent and the interviewer and to capture the respondent's emotions. During the interview, audio recordings were used with the permission of the respondents. The length of the interview was specified for only half of the collected interviews and its average value was 23 minutes.

The guide (Appendix 2), compiled during the course of the project, included questions about the personal experience of the consumption of energy drinks, attitudes, effects, and consequences, mixing energy drinks with alcohol, barriers, and difficulties encountered by respondents when using drinks.

Two additional interviews were collected later for a course paper “Cultural Norms and Means of Energy Drinks Consumption” (Pikunova, 2019). The sampling, collection, recruitment, screening, and guide methods were the same.

As for respondents, the majority were females (65%), while males were 7 out of 20 people who participated in the interview. The average age of the respondents was 19.6 (SD = 1.14; min = 17, max = 22). All respondents were students (according to the terms of the screening) and represented the faculties of sociology, economics, management, and law. Five respondents did not report their major. Considering their involvement in the use of energy drinks, the majority (60%) reported that they drink these beverages 1-4 times per month, three respondents drink two and more energy drinks per week (8-10 per month), while five respondents did not specify the exact number and reported that they drink “often” (three individuals out of twenty) or “rarely” (two respondents). Eight people faced negative consequences: heart problems after drinking energy beverages (2 persons), abdominal pain (1), loss of consciousness when mixing energy drinks with alcohol (1), addiction and problems with sleep (2), and two respondents reported that their friends had health issues after usage of energy drinks.

The main data information was collected and structured during the data preparation stage and is presented in Table B1.

For analysis of interview data theoretical thematic analysis was conducted, which was a research question-driven process of finding patterns and themes inside qualitative data. This approach was described by Braun and Clarke (2006) and divided into six consecutive steps: 1) becoming familiar with the data, 1) generation initial codes, 3) search for themes, 4) review themes, 5) definition of themes, and 6) reporting. Only relevant for research interest parts of the material were encoded, so the previous stage with the identification of the main topics and blocks became the basis for the development of coding guidelines. Open coding was used, which means there were no pre-defined codes, and during this step, information was compared between different parts of the interview, the entered codes were improved, and new ones were added until saturation occurred and there was no need to create new codes. After that, qualitative content analysis was used for revealing the themes.

One of the main focus of this analysis was on the search for motivations and norms for using energy drinks, and their subsequent classification. Also, concepts such as lifestyle with connection to habitus and field were used to explain the social aspect of consumption and establish a cultural context. During the analysis, hypotheses were also put forward, which were subsequently verified quantitatively at the stage of survey database analysis. Participant quotes were presented to illustrate the themes and findings, identification was made using links to the interview number.

It was decided that this method is the best procedure for investigating motives and meanings, as well as certain norms related to group affiliation, situational context, and personal limitations. Interviews help to identify personal interpretations that may be invisible to the researcher from the outside, identify repetitive practices, and the importance of this for the respondent. The selected method of analysis, in turn, makes it possible not to strictly follow the theory, but to identify common patterns and build the idea of consumption.

Survey database analysis

To identify the main factors that determine the consumption of energy drinks and test the hypotheses that appeared at the interview analysis, the secondary analysis of available quantitative data was performed.

The secondary data was collected during the drug monitoring internet survey conducted among 699 students of RSPU. A. I. Herzen at the age of 17 to 43 years using anonymous questionnaires which included general questions (age, gender, information about education, work, etc.), questions about the use of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and energy drinks.

To be consistent with the definition of population of interest, the database was filtered by age from 17 to 25 years. The final data set consisted of 663 respondents, including 138 males (20.8%) and 525 females (79.2%).

The average age of the subjects was 19.8 years (SD = 1.79). Around 35% of respondents combine work and study and every second respondent (51.7%) is studying at the expense of state funding.

The main dependent variables in this study were the levels of energy drink consumption and the mixing of energy drinks with alcohol by the student. Students were asked to report the number of times they had consumed energy drinks in their entire life, the last year, and the last month with and without alcohol. The main independent variables here were the levels of alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking. Other variables included in all analyses as possible factors of influence on consumption identified in previous stages were gender, age, a form of education, income level, job (having or not), self-reported academic performance, and self-reported bad habits.

A separate step of the study was an investigation of the context of energy drink usage, alcohol consumption, mixing of them, and frequency. More details on this will be given in Appendix C.

Data analysis was conducted using the RStudio program in several stages.

Dependencies exploration.At this stage, a complete dataset was used, including 663 observations for all students of the sample, and the relationships between dependent variables related to energy drink consumption (lifetime, annual, monthly use of energy drinks both separately and mixed with alcohol, five totally) and independent variables were checked.

First, linear regressions were built for five dependent variables and predictors like gender, age, a form of education, income level, job (having or not), self-reported academic performance, self-reported bad habits, levels of alcohol consumption and smoking (the period - life, year, month - was selected according to the dependent variable).

Then the dependent variables were divided into two categories - the presence of experience of use (number of times used more than null) and the absence, after which logistic regressions were constructed for prediction of the experience of trying with all independent variables.

Context research. At this stage, the main dependent variables were the context of consumption of energy drinks, alcohol, and mixing of these two substances. This part used answers to questions about the context (more details in Appendix C), with multiple choices possible. During the analysis, the main hypotheses of qualitative analysis and the context of the use of various substances were tested, depending on the belonging to different groups of users by frequency of use.

So, first, the examination of context when students turn to use of energy drinks, alcohol, and a mix of alcohol and energy drinks, and its comparison were made. First, the proportions of different contexts among all for each drink were calculated, then the proportions were compared using a Chi-square test. A complete database with 663 observations was applied here.

Second, the context of energy drink consumption was compared depending on the frequency of consumption of these drinks. The frequency of consumption of energy drinks was considered in two variants: the first, a broader classification, was divided into consumption more than 10 times a year (approximately every month) and less; the second perspective of frequency was considered in 7 groups (“0”, “1-2”, “3-5”, “6-9”, “10-19”, “20-39”, “40 and more” times per year). The Chi-squared test was used to determine the statistical difference between the groups.

Also, the context of energy drink consumption among working and non-working students, statistically verified by the Chi-square test, was considered.

Through the use of data analysis, we were able to test hypotheses made earlier and find additional patterns in the data that are important factors in energy drink consumption.

Results

Forums

In this part of the analysis, 26 forums were included, eight of them were found on the Google platform and 19 pages were chosen from the Yandex search engine. One forum was shown on both platforms.

The average number of comments on the selected forums was 97.7 (SD = 89.3), while the maximum number of comments was 357, and the minimum was equal to 3. Besides, the median value was 66. The most active forum branch, which included 357 comments, was dedicated to the fact of consuming energy drinks and included the question: “do you drink energy beverages”. The smallest number of comments belonged to a branch on a forum about sports and included a long message from the author of the topic with facts about the harm of energy drinks on human health.

If we consider time limits, the last messages on these forums were dated from 2006 to 2020.

The oldest last comment belonged to the forum, which is a platform for communication of people on any topic and was left in 2006. Not so long ago, discussion on 8 forums was ended - four forums in 2019 and four pages in 2020 - included mostly discussion within the healthy lifestyle and reviews on energy drinks as products.

During the analysis, there was an obvious difference in the focus of forums, so this sample was classified by forum type and main topic into the following sections:

· discussion club, “chatterers” (a place for people to communicate, discuss all “life” and everyday issues)

· women's forum (forums dedicated to femininity)

· maternity (platforms with the discussion of the birth and upbringing of children)

· video games, technologies, and gadgets (a gathering place for people involved in cyberspace)

· pickup forum (forums considering masculinity and the practice of seduction)

· cars and driving (platforms for drivers and people associated with cars)

· healthylifestyleandsports

· reviews of products

· religion (forum with a religious focus, including deliberation of norms and behavior of people)

· city forum (forums for residents of the same city, including discussion of various topics)

The most numerous sections were the “chatterers” and “video games, technologies, and gadgets” blocks, which consisted of 5 forums each. The sections on motherhood and religion had only one forum each, while the other blocks included 2-3 forums.

The most active block was the section with forums about computer games and technologies, which on average included 196.2 responses in the forum branch (min = 32; max = 357). Next came city forums - 123.5 (min = 75; max = 172) - and sites with reviews of various energy drinks on special food sites with average number of reviews equal to 118.3 (min = 65; max = 200). The most inactive forum was the religious one - only 7 responses.

According to recent reports, the “youngest” forums were sites with product reviews, discussion of healthy lifestyles, and video games.

The main topic of consideration on the forums was health and harm caused by energy drinks to the organism and was discussed almost on all pages, especially on chatter forums, women's, maternal, and urban forums:

“I got hooked on this shit, and now I'm wondering if I'm doing a lot of damage to my health. It's just that I once heard that this activity is very harmful “Че-та подсел я на эту хрень, а теперь вот думаю, не наношу ли я сильного вреда своему здоровью? Просто когда-то я слвшал что это дело вредное очень”” (forum 3)

“My friends and I sometimes drink energy drinks. But now they are constantly talking about their harm. That they wear out the heart and are harmful to the liver. Well, the jar says that they are not recommended for children under 18 years of age, pregnant women, and people with heart diseases. I want to ask, how harmful are they and what is the rate of their consumption? I'm already 18 “Мы с друзьями иногда пьем энергетические напитки. Но сейчас постоянно говорят о их вреде. Что они изнашивают сердце и вредны для печени. Ну, на баночке написано, что их не рекомендуется пить детям до 18 лет, беременным женщинам и лицам с заболеваниями сердца. Я хочу спросить, насколько они вредны и какова норма их потребления? Мне уже есть 18””(forum 3)

The question of the effectiveness of drinks and raising cheerfulness is raised on sites dedicated to driving and video games, which indicates a professional or leisure need for these drinks. Also, users of forums about pickup who drink it to increase energy and vigor for sexual purposes and seduction were concerned about the presence of the effect.

An interesting case is noticeable on forums examined sports - people involved in the discussion often told about energy drinks as a legal way to influence their physical condition and improve their own sports results:

“After drinking the energy drink, a person literally immediately begins to feel more cheerful and ready to conquer the set peaks “Выпив энергетик человек, буквально сразу начинает чувствовать себя бодрее и готовым покорять поставленные вершины””(forum 23)

It is important to note that people who were discussing the beverages not always are consumers in reality. A significant group of consumers was teenagers and young people, who were discussed on many websites as those who mainly drink energy drinks:

“but our young people drink this poison. I go from work, and near supermarkets young people spin for 15-16 years and all with cans of energy drinks. It is frightening to see what will happen to our younger generation… “а вот наша молодежь поголовно попивает этот яд. Иду с работы,а возле супермаркетов молодежь крутиться лет по 15-16 и все с баночками энергетика.Страшно становиться ,что с нашим молодым поколением будет...””(forum 7)

Also, alcoholic energy drinks are often mentioned in the connection with young people:

“So, after all, the most popular youth drink - “Jaguar”. Alcoholic energy drink, yeah. In my opinion, the stuff is terrible, the smell alone makes me sick. Kids do drink “Так ведь самый популярный молодежный напиток - “Ягуар”. Алкогольный энергетик, ага. По-моему, гадость страшная, меня от одного запаха мутит. А детки пьют””(forum 8)

Moreover, young people are the main group discussing the effect and consequences on forums dedicated to computer games.

Thus, the main groups of consumers, according to the analysis with various characteristics, are:

· people who play sports (impact on health, the influence of sport results);

· individuals involved in computer technology and games (impact on health, increasing of alertness, alternatives);

· youth as a social group by age (mostly discussed by others, cybersport);

· drivers (impact on health, increasing of alertness, alternatives);

· men concerned to improve their sexual potential (influence on strength, endurance, the sexual potential, impact on health).

Marketing reports

Interview analysis

The purpose of this part of the study was to identify the main patterns of energy drink consumption among students, consider the motivations and reasons that determine this use, as well as the norms and rules that consumers believe regulate this consumption. The respondents' narratives differed in many ways, but there were some connections and repetitions between them, which in the course of the analysis led to certain themes and sub-themes shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Theoretical thematic analysis of qualitative data: themes and sub-themes

Also, each topic had a sub-theme “other”, which included important information that was difficult to identify as a separate part of the topic.

Theme 1: club life, mixing with alcohol.This section shows the behavioral practices described in many studies of energy drink consumption (ex, Nicolas Droste et al., 2014; Skewes et al., 2013). In the context of club life, an energy drink has two perspectives of consumption. Firstly, this drink is used as part of an alcoholic cocktail, and the reasons for such use may differ - some people use them to increase intoxication and get pleasure: