Coping motives for drinking affect stress reactivity but not alcohol consumption in a clinical laboratory setting

The ad-libitum taste test as measure of momentary alcohol use in the laboratory: an investigation of construct validity and confounding factors

RATIONALE

The ad-libitum taste test is a widely used covert measure of motivation to consume alcohol in the laboratory. However, studies on its construct validity and potential confounding factors are scarce.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to evaluate the construct validity of the ad-libitum taste test by examining the association of ad-libitum alcohol consumption with typical alcohol use and craving, and investigating potential moderation by trait anxiety, depressiveness, current mood, and drinking motives.

METHODS

A sample of 264 young male individuals were offered two 0.33 l glasses of beer. Participants were instructed to rate the characteristics of each drink, while the percentage of beverages containing alcohol consumed was assessed. Associations of ad-libitum consumption with typical alcohol use and craving were assessed using non-parametric and piecewise regressions. Moreover, moderator analysis with trait anxiety, depressiveness, current mood, and drinking motives was carried out.

RESULTS

Ad-libitum alcohol consumption was associated with typical alcohol use and alcohol craving. However, these associations decreased at high consumption levels. Associations between ad-libitum consumption, typical alcohol use, and craving were stable across several conditions, except that the association between ad-libitum consumption and craving increased with higher social, conformity, and coping drinking motives.

CONCLUSIONS

The ad-libitum taste test appears to be a valid measure of the motivation to drink alcohol in laboratory studies in young male adults, although this validity might be compromised at high levels of ad-libitum consumption. Consideration of these factors can contribute to further refining the ad-libitum taste test as a valuable tool for assessing motivation to consume alcohol in laboratory studies.

Discrete emotions and global affect: Applying empirically driven approaches to experience sampling data to model state and trait affective structure and affect-alcohol use associations in a heavy drinking young-adult sample

Affective functioning is central to most contemporary models of alcohol use. However, the affective structure at the within- and between-person levels is rarely investigated nor is the differential predictive value of specific affect dimensions assessed across state and trait formats. We examined a) the structure of state and trait affect using experience sampling methodology (ESM) and b) predictive associations between the empirically derived affect facets and alcohol use. Participants were 92 heavy drinking college students aged 18-25 who completed 8 momentary assessments of their affect and drinking a day for 28-days. We found evidence for a single positive affect factor at both the within- (i.e., state) and between-person (i.e., trait) levels. We found a hierarchical factor structure for negative affect, represented by a general, superordinate dimension as well as facet-level sadness, anxiety, and anger dimensions. Associations between affect and alcohol use differed across trait and state levels and across specific types of negative affect. Lagged state positive affect and sadness as well as trait positive affect and sadness were inversely associated with drinking. Lagged state anxiety and trait general negative affect were positively associated with drinking. Thus, our study demonstrates how associations between drinking and affect can be studied in relation to general (e.g., general negative affect) and more specific aspects of affective experiences (e.g., sadness versus anxiety) concurrently within the same study and across trait and state levels of assessment.

Towards an affect intensity regulation hypothesis: Systematic review and meta-analyses of the relationship between affective states and alcohol consumption

While self-medication and positive and negative reinforcement models of alcohol use suggest that there is an association between daily affect and alcohol consumption, findings within the academic literature have been inconsistent. This pre-registered systematic review meta-analytically interrogated the results from studies amongst non-clinical populations that examine the relationship between daily affective states and alcohol consumption volume. PRISMA guided searches of PsychINFO, PsycARTICLES, Science Direct, PubMed, SCOPUS, and JSTOR databases were conducted. When both laboratory and field studies were included, meta-analyses with robust variance estimation yielded 53 eligible studies on negative affect (8355 participants, 127 effect sizes) and 35 studies for positive affect (6384 participants, 50 effect sizes). The significant pooled associations between intra-day affect and alcohol consumption were r = .09, [.03, .14] for negative affect, and r = .17, [.04, .30] for positive affect. A small-to-medium sized effect (d = .275, [.11, .44]) of negative affect on daily alcohol consumption volume was found in laboratory studies (14 studies, 1100 participants). While publication bias was suspected, P-curve analyses suggested that the results were unlikely to be the product of publication bias and p-hacking alone, and selection model analysis revealed no significant differences in results when publication bias was accounted for. For negative affect, using number of drinks as the measure of alcohol consumption was associated with lower effect sizes. For positive affect, the results demonstrated a decline of this observed effect over time. Overall, findings point towards the possibility of developing an affect intensity regulation theory of alcohol use. Conceptualizing the mood-alcohol nexus in terms of affect intensity regulation may afford a more parsimonious explanation of alcohol consumption rather than viewing the behavior as being shaped by either positive or negative affective states.

Neurobiological Bases of Alcohol Consumption After Social Stress

The urge to seek and consume excessive alcohol is intensified by prior experiences with social stress, and this cascade can be modeled under systematically controlled laboratory conditions in rodents and non-human primates. Adaptive coping with intermittent episodes of social defeat stress often transitions to maladaptive responses to traumatic continuous stress, and alcohol consumption may become part of coping responses. At the circuit level, the neural pathways subserving stress coping intersect with those for alcohol consumption. Increasingly discrete regions and connections within the prefrontal cortex, the ventral and dorsal striatum, thalamic and hypothalamic nuclei, tegmental areas as well as brain stem structures begin to be identified as critical for reacting to and coping with social stress while seeking and consuming alcohol. Several candidate molecules that modulate signals within these neural connections have been targeted in order to reduce excessive drinking and relapse. In spite of some early clinical failures, neuropeptides such as CRF, opioids, or oxytocin continue to be examined for their role in attenuating stress-escalated drinking. Recent work has focused on neural sites of action for peptides and steroids, most likely in neuroinflammatory processes as a result of interactive effects of episodic social stress and excessive alcohol seeking and drinking.

Potions for Emotions: Do self-reported individual differences in negative-emotional drinking predict alcohol consumption in the laboratory following exposure to a negative experience?

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Increased alcohol consumption in response to negative emotion can be observed in the laboratory.

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This phenomenon is best predicted by self-reports on observable behavior and not by drinking motives.

Aims

Research suggests that self-reports on inferred motives for engaging in behavior may be biased by limited introspective access into such processes. Self-reports on observable behavior, on the other hand, may generate more accurate responses with which to predict behavior. The aim was to determine whether drinking alcohol in response to negative emotion (negative-emotional drinking; NED) is best predicted by self-reported individual differences in (a) motives to use alcohol to regulate negative emotion, or (b) the degree to which negative emotion impacts alcohol consumption (observable behavior).

Methods

Thirty-nine beer drinkers completed the Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised (DMQ-R) which measures individual differences in drinking motives, including the motive to regulate negative emotion (coping motives). They also completed a new self-report measure of the degree to which negative emotion impacts their alcohol consumption. Participants were randomized into a negative emotion induction condition or control condition and completed a subsequent alcohol consumption task to serve as a behavioral measure of drinking in response to negative emotion.

Results

Self-reports on the degree to which negative emotion impacts respondents’ alcohol consumption strongly predicted alcohol consumption in the negative emotion induction condition (r = 0.72, p = <.001) and not in the control condition (r = 0.09, p = .696). Self-reported coping motives did not predict alcohol consumption in either condition.

Conclusions

The amount of alcohol consumed in response to negative emotion is best predicted by self-reports on observable behavior, and not by self-reports on drinking motives.

Racial discrimination and alcohol problems among African American young adults: Examining the moderating effects of racial socialization by parents and friends

OBJECTIVE

Racial discrimination is a stressor that may put African Americans at risk for alcohol use and related problems. We examined whether experiences of blatant (racist events) and subtle (racial microaggressions) forms of racial discrimination were associated with alcohol consumption and alcohol problems among African American young adults, and whether childhood/adolescence racial socialization by parents and friends moderated these associations.

METHOD

The sample included 383 African American young adults (Mage = 20.65, SD = 2.28; 81% female) who completed an electronic survey in Fall, 2017. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted in Mplus.

RESULTS

Experiences of racist events and racial microaggressions were associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption and more alcohol problems. Racial socialization by friends, but not parents, moderated these associations. Specifically, cultural socialization by friends buffered the effect of racist events on alcohol consumption and alcohol problems, whereas promotion of mistrust by friends exacerbated the effect of racial microaggressions on alcohol problems.

CONCLUSIONS

Both blatant and subtle forms of racial discrimination were associated with higher risk for alcohol use or problems among African American young adults. Racial socialization by friends while growing up may play an important role in alcohol use outcomes during young adulthood. Findings highlight the importance of considering different forms of racial discrimination and emphasize the unique roles of racial socialization across different social contexts (i.e., parent and peers or friends) in relation to psychosocial outcomes among African American individuals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Relations of Stress and Drinking Motives to Young Adult Alcohol Misuse: Variations by Gender

Theory and empirical findings have linked stress exposure to young adult alcohol misuse, but the processes underlying this association have not been fully investigated. This study examined gender differences in the indirect pathways linking stress in developmentally relevant domains to alcohol misuse in young adults, focusing on drinking motives as a possible mediator of the association. The longitudinal associations between adolescent heavy drinking and young adult stress were also explored. Participants were rural young adults who had been surveyed previously in adolescence (N = 442; 55.7% female; 96% White; Mage = 23.29, SD = 1.07). Chronic stress and drinking motives were concurrently associated with young adult alcohol misuse. For men, occupational stress was indirectly related to alcohol misuse through both social and coping motives for drinking, whereas for women relationship stress was indirectly related to alcohol misuse through social motives only. When investigating the longitudinal effects of adolescent drunkenness, more frequent drunkenness in adolescence was related to more adult occupational stress for men but to neither kind of stress for women. These findings indicate that stress in specific life domains is related to young adult alcohol misuse through drinking motives, that the link between stress and alcohol misuse may be bidirectional for men, and that different stressors and drinking motives are salient for young adult men and women.

Alcohol Drinking by Husbands/Partners is Associated with Higher Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Angola

Intimate partner violence (IPV), as the most prevalent form of violence against women, is a commonly encountered phenomenon across sub-Saharan African countries, including Angola. As a fast-growing economy, Angola is experiencing a booming alcohol industry and persistent IPV and women’s rights issues, along with weak prohibition and enforcement against this practice. However, so far, there is no systematic research investigating the predictors of IPV in Angola and whether spousal alcohol drinking has any relationship with women’s experience of IPV. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to assess the predictors of IPV (defined as physical, emotional, and sexual violence) among Angolan women with a special focus on their partners’ alcohol drinking habit. Cross-sectional data on 7669 women aged 15–49 years from the Angola Demographic and Health Survey were used for this study. Data were analyzed using descriptive and logistic regression methods. Results indicated that physical IPV (32.3%, 95% Confidence Interval = 30.3 to 34.5) was most prevalent, followed by emotional (27.3%, 95% CI = 25.3 to 29.4) and sexual IPV (7.4%, 95% CI = 6.6 to 8.4). In the multivariate analysis, higher education and household wealth status showed protective effects against certain forms of IPV. Alcohol drinking by husbands/partners was associated with significantly higher odds of experiencing physical [OR = 2.950; 95% CI = 2.632, 3.306], emotional [OR = 2.470; 95% CI = 2.187,2.789], and sexual IPV [OR = 2.729; 95% CI = 2.220, 3.354] among women. Women who reported experiencing physical IPV had increased odds of drinking alcohol [OR = 1.474; 95% CI = 1.290, 1.684] compared with those who did not. These findings reflect the widespread prevalence of IPV in sub-Saharan African countries. Special focus should be given to married men with alcohol drinking habits to reduce women’s vulnerability to IPV and dependence on alcohol use.

Negative Mood Induction Increases Choice of Heroin Versus Food Pictures in Opiate-Dependent Individuals: Correlation With Self-Medication Coping Motives and Subjective Reactivity

Acute growth in negative affect is thought to play a major role in triggering relapse in opiate-dependent individuals. Consistent with this view, three lab studies have demonstrated that negative mood induction increases opiate craving in opiate-dependent individuals. The current study sought to confirm these effects with a behavioral measure of heroin seeking, and test whether the effect is associated with self-reported opiate use to cope with negative affect and subjective reactivity to mood induction. Participants were heroin-dependent individuals engaged with treatment services (n = 47) and control participants (n = 25). Heroin users completed a questionnaire assessing reasons for using heroin: negative affect, social pressure, and cued craving. Baseline heroin choice was measured by preference to enlarge heroin versus food thumbnail pictures in two-alternative forced-choice trials. Negative mood was then induced by depressive statements and music before heroin choice was tested again. Subjective reactivity was indexed by negative and positive mood reported at the pre-induction to post-test timepoints. Heroin users chose heroin images more frequently than controls overall ( p = .001) and showed a negative mood-induced increase in heroin choice compared to control participants (interaction p < .05). Mood-induced heroin choice was associated with self-reported heroin use to cope with negative affect ( p < .05), but not social pressure ( p = .39) or cued craving ( p = .52), and with subjective mood reactivity ( p = .007). These data suggest that acute negative mood is a trigger for heroin seeking in heroin-dependent individuals, and this effect is pronounced in those who report using heroin to cope with negative affect, and those who show greater subjective reactivity to negative triggers. Interventions should seek to target negative coping motives to build resilience to affective triggers for relapse.

The effect of laboratory manipulations of negative affect on alcohol craving and use: A meta-analysis

Scientific and lay theories propose that negative affect plays a causal role in problematic alcohol use. Despite this common belief, supporting experimental evidence has been mixed. Thus, the goals of this study were to (a) meta-analytically quantify the degree to which experimentally manipulated negative affect influenced alcohol use and craving in the laboratory, (b) examine whether the size of this effect depended on key manipulation characteristics (i.e., self-relevance of the stressor, timing of the end of the stressor, and strength of negative affect induction) or sample characteristics (i.e., substance use history). Across 41 studies (N = 2,403), we found small-to-medium effects for more use (d_av = .31, 95% confidence interval; CI [.11, .50]) and craving (d_av = .39, 95% CI [.04, .74]) following a negative affect manipulation than a control manipulation. We also found a significant increase in craving from pre- to postaffect induction (d_av = .36, 95% CI [.14, .58]). This suggests the mixed results from the prior literature were likely because of statistically underpowered studies. The moderator hypotheses received weak support, with few significant results in the predicted direction. Our meta-analysis provides clarity about a previously inconclusive set of results and highlights the need for more ecologically valid manipulations of affect in future work. (PsycINFO Database Record

Depressive statements prime goal-directed alcohol-seeking in individuals who report drinking to cope with negative affect

BACKGROUND

Most variants of negative reinforcement theory predict that acute depressed mood can promote alcohol-seeking behaviour, but the precise mechanisms underpinning this effect remain contested. One possibility is that mood-induced alcohol-seeking is due to the formation of a stimulus-response (S-R) association, enabling depressed mood to elicit alcohol-seeking automatically. A second possibility is that depressed mood undergoes incentive learning, enabling it to enhance the expected value of alcohol and thus promote goal-directed alcohol-seeking.

OBJECTIVES

These two explanations were distinguished using a human outcome-revaluation procedure.

METHODS

One hundred and twenty-eight alcohol drinkers completed questionnaires of alcohol use disorder, drinking to cope with negative affect and depression symptoms. Participants then learned that two responses earned alcohol and food points respectively (baseline) in two alternative forced choice trials. At test, participants rated the valence of randomly sampled negative and positive mood statements and, after each statement, chose between the alcohol- and food-seeking responses in extinction.

RESULTS

The percentage of alcohol- versus food-seeking responses was increased significantly in trials containing negative statements compared to baseline and positive statement trials, in individuals who reported drinking to cope with negative affect (p = .004), but there was no such interaction with indices of alcohol use disorder (p = .87) or depression symptoms (p = .58).

CONCLUSIONS

Individuals who drink to cope with negative affect are more sensitive to the motivational impact of acute depressed mood statements priming goal-directed alcohol-seeking. Negative copers' vulnerability to alcohol dependence may be better explained by excessive affective incentive learning than by S-R habit formation.

Interventions for Subjects with Depressive Symptoms with or without Unhealthy Alcohol Use: Are There Different Patterns of Change?

Background: It has been suggested that alcohol problems negatively affect therapeutic interventions for depression. This study examines the patterns of change in depressive symptoms following an intervention for depression, in participants with or without comorbid unhealthy alcohol use.

Methods: Depressive symptoms (BDI–II), perceived control of depressive symptoms (UNCONTROL) and unhealthy alcohol use (AUDIT) were assessed in 116 patients before and after attending a cognitive behavioral psychoeducational intervention for depression. At pretest the mean score of AUDIT was 8.1, indicating a, on average, risk of harmful level of alcohol abuse. At pretest the majority of the total sample had a moderate degree of depressive symptoms, with a mean BDI–II score of 25.1 and 36.2% had a risky use of alcohol as measured with AUDIT score at 8 points or above. To assess the relationship between depressive symptoms, perceived uncontrollability of depression and alcohol use across time, a cross-lagged panel model was estimated.

Results: A clinical significant reduction of depressive symptoms, and a parallel and statistically significant increase in the perceived control of depressive symptoms, was identified after attending a cognitive behavioral psychoeducational intervention for depression. At posttest, the mean BDI–II score was 17.8, demonstrating a statistically significant decrease of 7.3 points in depressive symptoms from before starting the course to 6 months later. The effect size (d-value) of 0.83 can be interpreted as a large decrease in depressive symptoms. In this sample alcohol use and depressive symptoms seemed to be unrelated. The cross-lagged correlation panel analysis indicated that a high degree of perceived control of depressive symptoms leads to a reduction in depressive symptoms, and not vice versa.

Conclusion: We found that this intervention for depression were effective in reducing depressive symptoms. The patterns of change seemed to be independent of risky use of alcohol, although leaving the study was systematically associated with higher AUDIT-scores. As participants with or without unhealthy alcohol use show the same patterns of change regarding reduction of depressive symptoms and perceived control of depression, both groups could be offered the same cognitive behavioral psychoeducational interventions for depression.

Hopelessness and alcohol use: The mediating role of drinking motives and outcome expectancies

INTRODUCTION

Heavy drinking is a considerable public health concern. There is a broad evidence-base examining the separate contributions of personality characteristics, motives and alcohol-expectancies on subsequent alcohol use to identify those at risk. However, little is known about the complex relationships by which these variables may interact to predict drinking behavior. Feelings of hopelessness and anxiety sensitivity are hypothesized to be distal predictors of alcohol use, with outcome expectancies and drinking motives more proximal. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine whether hopelessness and anxiety sensitivity influenced alcohol use via drinking to cope and alcohol - outcome expectancies.

METHODS

We recruited 230 participants to complete an online questionnaire consisting of the brief drinking motives questionnaire, the Substance Use Risk Profile scale and Brief Comprehensive Effects of Alcohol scale. We conducted path analyses using structural equation modelling.

RESULTS

We demonstrated a significant direct effect of anxiety sensitivity on alcohol use, and a significant serial indirect effect of hopelessness through coping motives and alcohol outcome expectancies.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest feelings of hopelessness may predict alcohol consumption through a complex pathway and future research should use these findings to identify individuals at risk of increased alcohol use.

Effects of alcohol, rumination, and gender on the time course of negative affect

This study modelled associations between gender, ruminative cognitive style, alcohol use, and the time course of negative affect over the course of 43,111 random assessments in the natural environment. Participants (N   =   263) completed 49 days of experience sampling over 1.3 years. The data indicated that rumination at baseline was positively associated with alcohol dependence symptoms at baseline as well as higher negative affect over the course of the study. Consistent with negative reinforcement models, drinking served to decrease the persistence of negative affect from moment to moment. However, this ameliorative effect of drinking was evident only among women, suggesting an increased risk for negative reinforcement driven drinking behaviour. In addition, rumination appeared to counteract the desired effects of alcohol on mood among women. This suggests that women who ruminate more may be motivated to consume larger amounts of alcohol to achieve the desired effects. Overall, the results indicate that ruminative cognitive style and the persistence of negative affect from moment to moment may reflect an individual vulnerability for the development of alcohol use disorder especially among women.