Researchers have found that, compared to European Americans, African Americans report later initiation of drinking, lower rates of use, and lower levels of use across almost all age groups. Nevertheless, African Americans also have higher levels of alcohol problems than European Americans. After reviewing current data regarding these trends, we provide a theory to understand this apparent paradox as well as to understand variability in risk among African Americans. Certain factors appear to operate as both protective factors against heavy use and risk factors for negative consequences from use. For example, African American culture is characterized by norms against heavy alcohol use or intoxication, which protects against heavy use but which also provides within group social disapproval when use does occur. African Americans are more likely to encounter legal problems from drinking than European Americans, even at the same levels of consumption, perhaps thus resulting in reduced consumption but more problems from consumption. There appears to be one particular group of African Americans, low-income African American men, who are at the highest risk for alcoholism and related problems. We theorize that this effect is due to the complex interaction of residential discrimination, racism, age of drinking, and lack of available standard life reinforcers (e.g., stable employment and financial stability). Further empirical research will be needed to test our theories and otherwise move this important field forward. A focus on within group variation in drinking patterns and problems is necessary. We suggest several new avenues of inquiry.

There are several different personality traits that dispose individuals to engage in rash action. One such trait is positive urgency: the tendency to act rashly when experiencing extremely positive affect. This trait may be relevant for college student risky behavior, because it appears that a great deal of college student risky behavior is undertaken during periods of intensely positive mood states. To test this possibility, the authors conducted a longitudinal study designed to predict increases in risky sexual behavior and illegal drug use over the course of the first year of college (n = 407). In a wellfitting structural model, positive urgency predicted increases in illegal drug use and risky sexual behavior, even after controlling for time 1 (T1) involvement in both risky behaviors, biological sex, and T1 scores on four other personality dispositions to rash action. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding. Keywordsimpulsivity; risk; emotion; positive emotion; drug use; risky sex This paper describes a longitudinal study that takes advantage of recent advances in personality theory to test a new, specific theory of the influence of personality on involvement in risky behaviors during the transitional first year of college. To introduce this study, we briefly consider the increased risk for involvement in two such behaviors: risky sex and illegal drug use, the nature of the risks those behaviors entail, and the research advances that we believe shed light on the risk process. Risky Sex and Illegal Drug UseFor many individuals, the transition into college involves new levels of freedom and independence (Schulenberg, O'Malley, Bachman, Wadsworth, & Johnston, 1996). One consequence of this new independence is increased likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors. Indeed, several studies have confirmed that college student status is associated with higher rates of engaging in such behaviors. In this paper, we focus on two: risky sexual behaviors and illegal drug use (Butcher, Thompson, & O'Neal, 1991;Gledhill-Hoyt, Lee, Strote, & Wechsler, 2000). La Brie and Earleywine (2000) found that 65 percent of college students reported having sex without a condom (La Brie & Earleywine, 2000), and college presence predicts increased drug use (Goldberger, Graham, Nelson, Cadet, & Gould, 2007;Siebert & Wilke, 2007). Potential risks from these behaviors include contraction of sexually transmitted diseases (Weinstock, Berman, & Cates, 2004), physical harm to self and others from behaviors engaged Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tamika C. B. Zapolski or Gregory T. Smith, at the Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 40506-0044, E-mail: tamika.zapolski@gmail.com or E-mail: gsmith@email.uky.edu. (Brookoff, Cook, Williams, & Mann, 1994;O'Malley & Johnston, 2003;Soderstrom, Dischinger, Kerns, & Triffillis, 1995), and suppressed immune system functioning from drug use (Friedman, Pross, & Klein, 2006). NIH Public Access Advanc...

The authors argue for a significant shift in how clinical psychology researchers conduct construct validation and theory validation tests. They argue that sound theory and validation tests can best be conducted on measures of unidimensional or homogeneous constructs. Hierarchical organizations of such constructs are useful descriptively and theoretically, but higher order composites do not refer to definable psychological processes. Application of this perspective to the approach of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to describing psychopathology calls into doubt the traditional use of the syndromal approach, in which single scores reflect the presence of multidimensional disorders. For many forms of psychological dysfunction, this approach does not appear optimal and may need to be discarded. The authors note that their perspective represents a straightforward application of existing psychometric theory, they demonstrate the practical value of adopting this perspective, and they provide evidence that this shift is already under way among clinical researchers. Description in terms of homogeneous dimensions provides improved validity, utility, and parsimony. In contrast, the use of composite diagnoses can retard scientific progress and hamper clinicians' efforts to understand and treat dysfunction. Keywords valid diagnosis; construct validation; construct definitions; homogeneity; diagnostic progressThis article has two basic aims. The first is to advance the argument that unidimensional construct measures provide the best basis for construct validation tests and theory tests. Validation tests on multidimensional measures, which are composites of related measures, can obscure important psychological processes. Elements of composites can, and do, act differently from one another, so analysis of composite scores combines the potentially different roles of its elements. For that reason, the use of composite scores can lead to unclear conclusions. The second aim is to apply this perspective to the problem of assessing and describing psychopathology. Many psychiatric diagnoses are composites of more than one construct, and so they may not represent meaningful psychological entities for most scientific purposes. Their use can interfere with clinical practice. We therefore advocate a new approach to

The presence of binge eating behavior in early middle school predicts future diagnoses and health difficulties. The authors showed that this early binge eating behavior can, itself, be predicted by risk factors assessed in elementary school. We tested the acquired preparedness model of risk, which involves transactions among personality, psychosocial learning, and binge eating. In a sample of 1,906 children assessed in the spring of fifth grade (the last year of elementary school), the fall of sixth grade, and the spring of sixth grade, we found that fifth grade negative urgency (the personality tendency to act rashly when distressed) predicted subsequent increases in the expectancy that eating helps alleviate negative affect, which in turn predicted subsequent increases in binge eating behavior. This transactional risk process appeared to continue to occur at later time points. Negative urgency in the fall of sixth grade was predicted by fifth grade pubertal onset, binge eating behavior, and expectancies. It, in turn, predicted increases in high-risk eating expectancies by the spring of sixth grade, and thus heightened risk.

Among adolescents and adults, there appear to be at least four different personality traits that dispose individuals to rash or ill-advised action: sensation seeking, negative urgency, lack of planning, and lack of perseverance. The four are only moderately correlated and they appear to play different roles in dysfunction. It is important to determine whether the traits are present among preadolescents, because of their possible influence on subsequent development. We developed assessments of the four traits for preadolescent children, and found evidence supporting (a) the internal consistency of each trait measure, (b) the convergent and discriminant validity of the four measures using the multitrait, multimethod technique, and (c) the hypothesis that the different traits correlated with different dysfunctional behaviors as predicted by theory. Pending further validation efforts, it appears to be the case that researchers may be able to distinguish among different dispositions to rash action prior to adolescence.

The current pair of experimental studies sought to further validate the role of positive urgency (acting rashly when in an extreme positive emotional state) as a risk factor for impulsive and maladaptive behavior. Previous research has supported the use of emotion-based dispositions to rash action in predicting a wide range of maladaptive acts. However, that research was conducted in the field and relied on self-reported behavior, thus lacking tight experimental controls and direct observation of risky behaviors. In the two experimental studies described here, we found that, among college students, (1) positive urgency significantly predicted negative outcomes on a risktaking task following a positive mood manipulation (n = 94), and (2) positive urgency significantly predicted increases in beer consumption following positive mood induction (n = 33). Positive urgency's role was above and beyond previously identified risk factors; these findings, combined with prior cross-sectional and longitudinal field studies, provide support for the role of positive urgency in rash action. Experimental effect of positive urgency on negative outcomes from risk taking and on increased alcohol consumptionRecent research has shown that impulsive behavior can be predicted by several different personality traits, including sensation seeking, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, negative urgency (impulsive action when in an extreme negative mood), and positive urgency (impulsive action when in an extreme positive mood: Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to Melissa A. Cyders, melissa.cyders@gmail.com. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/pubs/journals/adb NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptPsychol Addict Behav. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 September 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript Cyders & Smith, 2008a;Cyders, Smith, Spillane, Fischer, Annus, & Peterson, 2007;Whiteside & Lynam, 2001). One novel finding in this research has been that positive urgency is cross-sectionally and prospectively predictive of negative consequences from a wide range of rash acts, as described further below Cyders & Smith, 2008a;Cyders & Smith, 2008b;Cyders & Smith, 2010;Cyders, Flory, Rainer, & Smith, 2009; Settles, Cyders, & Smith, in press;Zapolski, Cyders, & Smith, 2009). It appears that even though trait-like positive affectivity contributes to reduced risk (Wills, Sandy, Yaeger, 2000), there are individual differences in the tendency to respond to extremely posi...

This paper reports on a longitudinal test of a developmental model of early drinking that specifies transactions among personality, learning and behavior in the risk process. The model was tested on 1906 children making the transition from elementary school to middle school across three time points: the spring of 5th grade, the fall of 6th grade, and the spring of 6th grade. In a transaction that has been referred to as Acquired Preparedness, individual differences in the trait positive urgency at the end of 5th grade were associated with increases in expectancies for social facilitation from alcohol at the start of 6th grade, which then predicted drinker status at the end of 6th grade. In addition, the alcohol expectancy and drinker status predicted each other reciprocally across time. Multiple factors appear to transact to predict early drinking behavior.

Objective The very early engagement in bulimic behaviors, such as binge eating, may be influenced by factors that dispose individuals to impulsive action as well as by factors that dispose individuals to depressive symptomatology. Using a longitudinal design, we conducted the first test of the simultaneous operation of both risk factors as children transition from elementary to middle school. Method In a sample of 1,906 children, we assessed risk for impulsive action (negative urgency, which is the tendency to act rashly when distressed, and eating expectancies, which are learned anticipations that eating will alleviate negative mood) and risk for depression (negative affect and depressive symptomatology) and binge eating behavior at three time points using a longitudinal design: the end of fifth grade (last year of elementary school: T0), the beginning of sixth grade (first year of middle school: T1), and the end of sixth grade (T2). Results Both the impulsive action and depression pathways predicted very early engagement in binge eating: each accounted for variance beyond the other. Mediation tests found that T1 eating expectancies mediated the predictive influence of T0 negative urgency on T2 binge eating (z = 2.45, p < .01) and that T1 depressive symptoms mediated the influence of T0 negative affect on T2 binge eating (z = 2.04, p < .05). Discussion In children, elevated levels of both negative urgency and negative affect predict early binge eating. This finding has important clinical implications because there are different interventions for the two different risk processes.