Background and Objectives
Although research indicates that social anxiety (SA) is associated with problematic drinking, few studies have examined these relations among adolescents, and all alcohol-related assessments have been retrospective. Socially anxious youth may be at risk to drink in an effort to manage negative affectivity, and a proclivity towards disengagement coping (e.g., avoidance of aversive stimuli) may enhance the desire to drink and learning of coping-related use.
Design
Adding to research addressing adolescent SA and alcohol use, the current study examined (1) proportional drinking motives (subscale scores divided by the sum of all subscales), (2) current desire to drink in a socially-relevant environment (introduction to research laboratory), and (3) the indirect effect of retrospectively-reported disengagement in social stress contexts on proportional coping motives and desire to drink.
Method
Participants were 70 community-recruited adolescents who reported recent alcohol use. Level of SA, disengagement coping, drinking motives, and desire to drink following laboratory introduction were assessed.
Results
Proclivity toward disengagement in prior socially-stressful contexts accounted for significant variance in the positive relations between SA and both proportional coping motives and current desire to drink.
Conclusions
These data complement existing work. Continued efforts in building developmentally-sensitive models of alcohol use are needed.
Adolescents who are particularly sensitive to social stress may be vulnerable to earlier alcohol consumption and related problems. Although a small literature supports this contention, previous studies mostly relied on retrospective self-report. The current study used discrete-time survival analysis (DTSA) to test whether real-time social stress responding (via laboratory induction) and social anxiety symptoms predicted 12-month alcohol onset in an alcohol-naïve sample of young female adolescents. Anxiety elicited by the task was expected to predict greater and earlier rates of alcohol incidence, particularly among girls with higher levels of self-reported social anxiety symptoms. Participants were 104 community-recruited girls (ages 12–15 years) who completed a modified Trier Social Stress Test and questionnaires; follow-up calls were conducted at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after the laboratory visit. Self-reported anxiety was assessed in response to the stressor following acclimation (baseline), instruction (anticipation), and speech (posttask). By 12 months, 30.8% of the sample had consumed a full alcoholic beverage. The DTSA revealed that girls with higher levels of social anxiety and greater elevations in anticipatory (but not posttask) anxiety compared to baseline had earlier alcohol initiation. This is the first study to examine the role of both laboratory-induced anxious responding and retrospective reports of social anxiety as prospective predictors of alcohol incidence. These preliminary findings suggest that adolescent girls who are more sensitive to social stress may be at risk for experimenting with alcohol earlier than their peers.
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