Effect of typical alcohol use and expectancies on the social manipulation of drinking behavior in a virtual bar pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Recent work indicates that increasing the drinking rate of a virtual bar-goer (VB) increases the rate of drinking for participants in a virtual reality (VR) bar environment. Here, we test the hypothesis that biopsychosocial factors including typical drinking pattern and expectancy that alcohol enhances social interactions would moderate this effect. METHODS: We assessed the drinking topography (DT) of participants (N=20) in a VR environment with a programmable VB during two testing sessions: one with a fast-drinking VB (30-60s sip interval) and one in which the VB drank slowly (60-120s sip interval). In this secondary analysis, linear mixed models were used to characterize potential interactions of typical daily alcohol intake (quantity-frequency index [QFI]), maximal alcohol consumed in one bout over the past six months (maxQ), Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) score, and expectancy that alcohol enhances social and physical pleasures (SPP) with time in simulation and condition on sip interval and volume. RESULTS: Individuals with higher MaxQ showed a reduced effect of time on sip volume such that more intense recent binge episodes were associated with consistent drinking. Greater AUDIT scores were associated with lower sip intervals. In addition, greater SPP expectancy was associated with higher sip volumes, but only in the fast-drinking VB condition. CONCLUSIONS: Greater drinking behavior and social expectancies were associated with more rapid drinking topography. In addition, findings suggest challenging alcohol outcome expectancies related to social enhancement could reduce alcohol-related risks by slowing the rate of alcohol intake in social situations.

Weak Relationships Between Psychological Factors and Experimental Pain Outcomes in Pain-Free Individuals: An Aggregate Analysis of 8 Studies.

Although psychological factors such as anxiety, depression, and pain catastrophizing are known to influence pain outcomes in chronic pain populations, there are mixed results regarding whether they influence experimental pain outcomes in pain-free individuals. The objectives of this study were to determine the associations between psychological factors and experimental pain outcomes in pain-free adolescents and adults. Relationships between anxiety, depression, and pain catastrophizing and experimental pain outcomes across 8 different studies (total N = 595) were examined in different populations of pain-free adult and adolescent participants. Analyses were conducted with and without controlling for sex, age, and race. Studies were analyzed separately and as part of an aggregate analysis. Individual study analyses resulted in 136 regression models. Of these, only 8 models revealed a significant association between psychological factors and pain outcomes. The significant results were small and likely due to Type 1 error. Controlling for demographic factors had minimal effect on the results. The aggregate analyses revealed weak relationships between anxiety and pressure pain threshold (Fisher's z = -.10 [-.19, -.01]), anxiety and cold pain intensity ratings (Fisher's z = .18 [.04, .32]), and pain catastrophizing and pressure pain threshold (Fisher's z = -.14 [-.26, -.02]). Sample size calculations based on the aggregate analyses indicated that several hundred participants would be required to detect true relationships between these psychological factors and pain measures. The overall negative findings suggest that in pain-free individuals, anxiety, depression, and pain catastrophizing are not meaningfully related to experimental pain outcomes. PERSPECTIVE: Psychological variables have been shown to predict pain outcomes in chronic pain populations but these relationships may not generalize to pain-free populations. An analysis of 595 pain-free individuals across 8 studies in our lab revealed that anxiety, depression, and pain catastrophizing were not meaningfully related to experimental pain outcomes.