Does the How Mediate the Why? A Multiple Replication Examination of Drinking Motives, Alcohol Protective Behavioral Strategies, and Alcohol Outcomes

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Objective: The present study attempted to assess the evidence of use of protective behavioral strategies (PBS) as a mediator in the relationship between drinking motives and alcohol outcomes. Specifically, to understand various statistical approaches in modeling this proposed mediation model (e.g., drinking motives to PBS use to alcohol outcomes), we tried to replicate models based on earlier research. Method: To maximize the robustness of our replication attempts, we conducted each replication attempt across two distinct data sets whenever possible. Participants were recruited from psychology department research pools at a large southeastern U.S. university (Sample 1; n = 774) and a large southwestern U.S. university (Sample 2; n = 594). We matched the original articles' analytic procedures as closely as possible including overall analysis approach, measurement of variables, and inclusion/exclusion criteria. Results: Consistent with previous studies, we found that PBS use may be a mechanism through which both positively reinforcing (i.e., social and enhancement) motives and coping motives relate to alcohol outcomes (e.g., alcohol-related consequences). Specifically, students who tend to drink for these specific motives appear to use fewer PBS, which may place them at risk for heavier, more problematic drinking. Conclusions: Our results suggest that when drinking motives are examined separately, they demonstrate differential relationships with PBS use and alcohol outcomes. Overall, it is clear that PBS use plays a role in the drinking motives-alcohol outcomes relationship, but this role varies by type of motive. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 76, 872-883, 2015)

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.…”

“…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.…”

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

“…On the one hand, initiating drinking at a younger age may relate to using fewer PBSs because earlier age at first use is associated with developing more dysregulated drinking patterns (e.g., alcohol abuse/dependence; DeWit et al, 2000), suggesting that these individuals have difficulty controlling their drinking in general, and perhaps similarly have difficulty with implementing the use of PBSs. On the other hand, earlier initiation of use may also be associated with specific motives for drinking that are viewed as conflicting with PBS use (e.g., coping/enhancement motives; Bravo et al, 2015;Kuntsche & Müller, 2011).…”

“…Participants were recruited from a psychology department participant pool at a large, southwestern university in the United States (N = 628) and participated for course credit (Bravo et al, 2015;Pearson et al, 2016). Most participants were 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.…”