Existing studies on mandated students have not paid much attention to the possibility that mandated students may initiate the self-regulatory, self-recovery process due to getting caught and sanctioned, and that PFIs may facilitate rather than cause this self-recovery process. A few recent studies of mandated students suggest that the alcohol-related violation itself prior to any intervention contributes to reductions in alcohol use (Morgan, White, & Mun, 2008), and that perceived aversiveness of the incident is positively related to students’ motivation to change their drinking (Barnett, Goldstein, Murphy, Colby, & Monti, 2006). Barnett and colleagues hypothesized that salient alcohol-related events such as hospitalization or medical problems would bring about self-evaluation and greater motivation to change especially among those with less prior experience with alcohol and fewer prior alcohol problems. Barnett et al. found, as expected, that prior alcohol use was negatively linked to incident aversiveness and prior alcohol-related problems (AP) were also negatively associated with personal attribution of the incident. In addition, greater perceived incident aversiveness was linked with greater motivation to change alcohol use. Morgan et al. (2008) provided some
