When experience shows that certain behavior has a low expectation of leading to valued goals, alternative behavior, which has a greater expectation of leading to these goals, or of coping with failure to attain them, will be adopted. This principle serves as the basis for the central hypothesis in this study: that as two goals (academic achievement and social affection are unmet, greater recourse to one learned alternative behavior, drinking alcoholic beverages, will result. These four groups of college students were compared: (1) high expectation of success in both achievement and affection, (2) high achievement-low affection, (3) low achievement-high affection, and (4) low achievement-low affection. The latter group, as predicted, scored highest drinking behaviors. Results were more clearly defined for women than for men. A second study related attainment of these needs to psychophysiological and personality effects functions of drinking. Results support the inference that alcohol use may be a learned behavior for attaining otherwise unattainable goals or for coping with the failure to attain valued goals. (BP)