Effects of Sexual Arousal and Alcohol Cues on Acute Motivation for Alcohol.

Reward-related stimuli can induce motivation to obtain rewards both within and across domains. We tested within- and cross-domain effects of environmental context (mock bar vs. laboratory) and sexually arousing stimuli (pornography vs. nature film) on acute motivation for alcohol as measured by a state-based alcohol purchase task in 109 male and female college students. Our results showed significant effects of both sexual arousal and environmental context on acute motivation for alcohol. A limited subsample analysis (N = 84) revealed significant effects of both sexual arousal and environmental context conditions on elasticity. Consistent with hypotheses, the presence of either sex- or alcohol-related cues increased acute motivation for alcohol and decreased sensitivity to costs of drinking. Furthermore, there was a significant video × laboratory condition interaction in the elasticity analysis. Our findings suggest that both sexually arousing stimuli and incidental environmental alcohol cues may significantly increase the effort one will expend to consume alcohol and thus the potential for risky drinking behavior. We believe this is the first experiment to use demand curves to present evidence of cross-domain effects of sexually arousing stimuli on acute motivation for alcohol.

Keep calm and carry on: Maintaining self-control when intoxicated, upset, or depleted.

This study tested within-person associations between intoxication, negative affect, and self-control demands and two forms of self-control failure, interpersonal conflict, and neglecting responsibilities. Effortful control was hypothesised to act as a buffer, reducing individual susceptibility to these within-person effects. In contrast, reactivity was hypothesised to potentiate the within-person associations. 274 young adults aged 18-27 (56% women, 93% white) completed experience sampling assessments for up to 49 days over the course of 1.3 years. Results indicated independent within-person effects of intoxication, negative affect, and self-control demands on the outcomes. Hypothesised moderating effects of reactivity were not supported. Effortful control did not moderate the effects of self-control demands as expected. However, effortful control exhibited a protective effect when individuals were intoxicated or upset to reduce the likelihood of maladaptive behavioural outcomes.

Marijuana consequences in a motivational context: Goal congruence reduces likelihood of taking steps toward change.

This study tested a model of marijuana use, problems, and motivation and barriers to change among a sample of 422 undergraduate students ages 18-25 (M=19.68, SD=1.60) who used marijuana at least once in the past 6 months. We tested a structural equation model (SEM) with use motives (i.e., coping, enhancement, and expansion), perceived use utility, and gender as exogenous variables predicting marijuana use behavior (i.e., use and problems), motivation to change (i.e., problem recognition and perceived costs and benefits of change), and the ultimate outcome, taking steps to reduce marijuana use. Controlling for level of use and problems, expansion motives had a direct effect on increased perceived costs of change and enhancement motives had direct inverse effects on problem recognition and perceived benefits of change. However, the total effect of expansion motives on taking steps was not significant. The perceived role of marijuana in achieving personal strivings (i.e., use utility) was inversely associated with problem recognition, perceived benefits of change, and taking steps toward change. In contrast, coping motives, despite being associated with greater perceived costs of change, were positively associated with taking steps. Problem recognition was positively associated with both increased perceived costs and benefits of reducing marijuana use, reflecting individuals' ambivalence about change. As expected, perceived benefits and costs of reducing use were positively and negatively associated with taking steps toward changing marijuana use, respectively. The results identify individual difference factors that contribute to motivation for change and are consistent with motivational models of change readiness. These results highlight the extent to which integration of marijuana use with personal goal achievement may interfere with taking steps to change use patterns despite associated negative consequences.

Advantages and disadvantages of college drinking in students' own words: content analysis of the decisional balance worksheet.

The decisional balance worksheet (DBW), an open-ended measure of motivation to change, may be used to record the perceived advantages and disadvantages of substance use as well as alternative behaviors. Recent findings have indicated that the open-ended DBW can be quantified to validly reflect college students' level of motivation to reduce their drinking (Collins, Carey, & Otto, 2009). The goal of the current study was to enhance our understanding of college students' perceived advantages and disadvantages of drinking by qualitatively examining the content of their decisional balance. Participants were undergraduate college students at a 4-year university (N = 760) who participated in a randomized controlled trial of online brief motivational interventions. Using the DBW, participants recorded the advantages and disadvantages of their current drinking. Conventional content analysis methods were used to extract common themes. Social, enjoyment, and psychological reasons were the most commonly mentioned advantages of drinking, whereas physical side effects, expense and interference with goals were the most commonly mentioned disadvantages of drinking. These findings show that college students primarily use alcohol for enjoyment, particularly in social situations, as well as for coping with stress and social anxiety. On the other hand, many college students report having physical side effects from drinking as well as other kinds of concerns (e.g., expense, calories). Findings suggest that using the open-ended DBW may result in a more client-centered and accurate representation of what college students perceive as advantages and disadvantages to drinking than established, Likert-scale measures of decisional balance.

Associations of descriptive and reflective injunctive norms with risky college drinking.

The current study describes the relative predictive power of descriptive norms (i.e., how much the target student believes referents "drink until they get drunk") and reflective injunctive norms (i.e., target student's perception of referents' approval of the target student drinking until drunk) across various reference groups. The aim of this study was to gain further insight into which types of norms and reference groups are most highly concurrently correlated with risky drinking. It was hypothesized that both reflective injunctive and descriptive norms would be significantly positively correlated with risky drinking outcomes, and that more proximal reference group norms would be more highly predictive than more distal reference group norms. Participants (N = 837) were college students on the U.S. west coast who completed questionnaires in the context of a longitudinal parent study. Cross-sectional, zero-inflated negative binomial regressions were used to test the relative strengths of correlations between descriptive and reflective injunctive norms (i.e., for typical college students, closest friend, person whose opinion they value most, and closest family member) and risky drinking (i.e., peak alcohol quantity, frequency of heavy drinking episodes, and alcohol-related problems). Findings showed that descriptive and reflective injunctive norms were most consistently, strongly and positively correlated with risky drinking when they involved referents who were closer to the target college drinkers (i.e., closest friend and person whose opinion you value the most). Norms for typical college students were less consistent correlates of risky drinking. These findings may contribute to the knowledge base for enhancing normative reeducation and personalized normative feedback interventions to include more personally salient and powerful normative information.