It remains unclear whether the negative reinforcement pathway to problematic drinking exists, and if so, for whom. One idea that has received some support recently is that people who tend to act impulsively in response to negative emotions (i.e. people high in negative urgency) may specifically respond to negative affect with increased alcohol consumption. We tested this idea in a preregistered secondary data analysis of two ecological momentary assessment studies using college samples. Participants ( N = 226) reported on their current affective state multiple times per day and also the following morning reported alcohol use of the previous night. We assessed urgency both at baseline and during the momentary affect assessments. Results from our Bayesian model comparison procedure, which penalises increasing model complexity, indicate that no combination of the variables of interest (negative affect, urgency, and the respective interactions) outperformed a baseline model that included two known demographic predictors of alcohol use. A non-preregistered exploratory analysis provided some evidence for the effect of daily positive affect, positive urgency, as well as their interaction on subsequent alcohol use. Taken together, our results suggest that college students’ drinking may be better described by a positive rather than negative reinforcement cycle.
Objective National Guard service members demonstrate increased suicide risk relative to the civilian population. One potential mechanism for this increased risk may be familiarity with and access to firearms following deployment. This study examined the association between firearm ownership, reasons for ownership, and firearm familiarity with a widely studied suicide risk factor—capability for suicide—among National Guard service members. Method Data were drawn from a cross‐sectional survey of National Guard service members conducted immediately post‐deployment in 2010. Service members (n = 2,292) completed measures of firearm ownership, firearm familiarity, and capability for suicide. Results Firearm ownership and increased firearm familiarity were associated with capability for suicide (d = 0.47 and r = .25, for firearm ownership and familiarity, respectively). When examined separately based on reason for ownership, owning a firearm for self‐protection (d = 0.33) or owning a military weapon (d = 0.27) remained significantly associated with capability for suicide. In contrast, owning a firearm for hobby purposes did not (d = −0.07). Conclusion Our findings support theories emphasizing practical aspects of suicide (e.g., three‐step theory) and suggest that owning firearms, in particular for self‐protection, along with familiarity using firearms may be associated with greater capability for suicide.
Influential theoretical models hypothesize that alcohol use is an especially potent reinforcer when used as a strategy to cope with negative affect. Although the evidence for this idea in observational data is weak, some experimental evidence suggests that the behavioral economic demand for alcohol increases immediately following a negative emotional event. Because existing studies testing the effect of negative mood inductions on the demand for alcohol have several methodological limitations and do not take inter- and intraindividual variability into account, we developed an improved experimental design to increase our confidence in any potential within-person effect of negative mood inductions on alcohol demand as well as to test whether this effect exhibits systematic inter- and intraindividual variability. We hypothesize that people will show a higher demand for alcohol following negative compared to neutral mood inductions and that this effect is stronger in heavy compared to light drinkers as well as stronger on days characterized by higher coping motives and negative urgency. Three hundred twenty college students will complete the alcohol purchase task (APT) after being subjected to 100 mood inductions (six negative, six neutral) on 20 separate days.
Although frequently hypothesized, the evidence for associations between affect and marijuana use in everyday life remains ambiguous. Inconsistent findings across existing work may be due, in part, to differences in study design and analytic decisions, such as study inclusion criteria, the operationalization of affect, or the timing of affect assessment. We used specification curves to assess the robustness of the evidence for affect predicting same-day marijuana use and marijuana use predicting next-day affect across several hundred models that varied in terms of decisions that reflect those typical in this literature (e.g., whether to average affect prior to marijuana use or select the affect report closest in time to marijuana use). We fitted these curves to data from two ecological momentary assessment studies of regular marijuana and/or alcohol using college students (N = 287). Results provided robust evidence that marijuana use was slightly less likely following experiences of negative affect and slightly more likely following positive affect. Specification curves suggested that differences in previous findings are most likely a function of the specific emotion items used to represent affect rather than differences in inclusion criteria, the temporal assessment and modeling of affect, or the covariates added to the model. There was little evidence for an association between marijuana use and next-day affect. Overall, our findings provide evidence against the predictions made by affect reinforcement models in college students and suggest that future research should model the associations of marijuana use with discrete emotional states rather than general negative and positive affect.
Stressors can undermine smokers' attempts to quit smoking. Although contemporary theories and animal models support this idea, human research has struggled to demonstrate definitively the relationship between stressors and smoking. Researchers have employed more ecologically valid methods like ecological momentary assessment to address this question, but studies focusing explicitly on stressors remain sparse and findings inconsistent. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of stressful event intensity on smoking and craving among cigarette smokers during a quit attempt. We conducted preregistered, complementary concurrent and prospective (i.e., 8-hour lag window between stressful event and outcomes) analyses to maximize statistical power and provide temporal ordering, respectively. We also conducted follow-up moderation (Lag 3 Stressful Event Intensity) analyses. We hypothesized that smokers would be more likely to report both smoking and craving as the intensity of stressful events increased. Cigarette smokers (N = 125; 77 male) were randomly assigned to take nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or placebo and provided 4x daily self-reports during the first 2 weeks of a quit attempt. Stressful events increased craving and the probability of smoking in concurrent analyses, and lag moderated the effect of stressful event intensity in follow-up prospective lagged analyses. NRT reduced the probability of smoking but not craving and did not moderate the effect of stressful events on smoking or craving. This study supports a prospective relationship between stressful events and smoking/ craving in situ and demonstrates that NRT does not reduce the impact of stressors on smoking or craving. General Scientific SummaryStress has been hypothesized but not confirmed to cause drug use in humans. This study provides evidence that experiencing stressful events increases the probability of smoking and increases craving among cigarette smokers trying to quit.
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