A Multiple Replication Examination of Distal Antecedents to Alcohol Protective Behavioral Strategies

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Objective:In the present study, we examined whether we could replicate previous findings that use of protective behavioral strategies (PBSs) mediates the associations between distal antecedents and alcohol-related outcomes in an independent sample. Further, we examined a more comprehensive model to determine which constructs uniquely (i.e., controlling for other distal antecedents) relate to PBS use and alcohol-related outcomes. Method: Participants were recruited from a psychology department participant pool at a large, southwestern university in the United States (N = 628). The majority of participants identified themselves as being either Hispanic (n = 334, 53.18%) or White, non-Hispanic (n = 212, 33.78%), were female (n = 386, 61.5%), and reported a mean age of 20.30 (SD = 3.80) years. Results: Across five replication attempts in separate models, we found significant indirect associations of age at first use, self-regulation, impulsivity-like traits, depressive symptoms, and conscientiousness on alcohol-related outcomes (i.e., use and problems) via PBS use. However, only the indirect associations of a second-order latent factor of self-regulation (based on premeditation, perseverance, self-regulation, and conscientiousness) and age at first use on alcohol-related outcomes via PBS use remained significant in the comprehensive model. Conclusions: Taken together, the replication attempts were largely successful in that nearly all associations were replicated in an independent sample of college students. However, in a comprehensive model with all distal antecedents simultaneously included, most of the direct and indirect associations failed to be supported. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 77, 958-967, 2016)

Can I Use Marijuana Safely? An Examination of Distal Antecedents, Marijuana Protective Behavioral Strategies, and Marijuana Outcomes

“…Specifically, marijuana PBS fully or partially mediated the effects of sex, premeditation, perseverance, coping motives, enhancement motives, conformity motives, and expansion motives on marijuana outcomes. These results are consistent with recent replication attempts in the alcohol PBS literature demonstrating alcohol PBS use as a mediator between age at drinking onset, drinking motives, impulsivity-like traits, and alcohol outcomes (Bravo et al, 2015(Bravo et al, , 2016. Taken together, marijuana PBS is not only a robust predictor of marijuana use frequency and marijuana-related consequences but also a good candidate to be considered as a mechanism by which marijuana users moderate their marijuana use and attenuate their risk of experiencing marijuana-related consequences.…”

“…This pattern of findings could be explained, in part, by our implementation of a comprehensive model (Bravo et al, 2016). Indeed, for a direct effect to remain significant it would need to explain unique variance in the outcome over and above the other predictor variables.…”

“…Although a large alcohol PBS field suggests that alcohol PBS use mediates the effects of a wide range of distal antecedents on alcohol-related outcomes, it is unknown whether marijuana PBS use would operate similarly. Based on mediation findings in the alcohol PBS literature (Bravo et al, 2015(Bravo et al, , 2016 and preliminary findings that marijuana PBS use is a protective factor associated with reduced marijuana-related harm (Pedersen et al, 2016), we expected that the associations between distal antecedents (i.e., sex, age at first use, impulsivity-like traits, and marijuana use motives) and marijuana outcomes (i.e., marijuana use frequency and consequences) would be mediated by marijuana PBS use. Generally, we expected that "protective" factors (e.g., female sex, premeditation, and perseverance) that are associated with greater marijuana PBS use would in turn be associated with less frequent marijuana use and fewer related consequences, whereas "risk" factors (e.g., younger age at first use, coping motives) associated with less marijuana PBS use would in turn be associated with greater marijuana use frequency and more related consequences.…”

“…Recently, colleagues (2015, 2016) were able to replicate the protective effect of alcohol PBS use on alcohol outcomes, as well as most of the direct effects of antecedent variables on alcohol PBS use, including age at drinking onset (positive), drinking motives (negative), and impulsivity-like traits 2 (negative; Bravo et al, 2015Bravo et al, , 2016. Similar to what has been found in the alcohol field, male sex (Johnston et al, 2015), earlier age at first use (Chen et al, 2009), impulsivity-like traits (Kaiser et al, 2012;Robinson et al, 2014;Wardell et al, 2016), and marijuana use motives (Simons et al, 1998;Zvolensky et al, 2007) have all been shown to be risk factors associated with increased marijuana use, consequences, and/or dependence.…”

College-Related Alcohol Beliefs and Problematic Alcohol Consumption: Alcohol Protective Behavioral Strategies as a Mediator

“…Second, PBS use has been shown to mediate the effects of impulsivity-like traits (Pearson, Kite, & Henson, 2012), conscientiousness (Martens et al, 2009), age of first use (Palmer, Corbin, & Cronce, 2010), self-regulation (D’Lima, Pearson, & Kelley, 2012), depressive symptoms (Martens et al, 2008), and drinking motives (Ebersole, Noble, & Madson, 2012; LaBrie, Lac, Kenney, & Mirza, 2011; Martens, Ferrier, & Cimini, 2007) on alcohol outcomes. Recently, most of these findings have been replicated (Bravo, Prince, & Pearson, 2015, 2016), adding confidence to the role of PBS as an important mediator of the effects of many constructs on alcohol outcomes. Third, PBS use has been shown to mediate the effects of several interventions targeting other alcohol beliefs (e.g., descriptive norms; Barnett, Murphy, Colby, & Monti, 2007, Larimer et al, 2007; Murphy et al, 2012).…”