Development of the lyrics-based deep learning algorithm for identifying alcohol-related words (LYDIA).

BACKGROUND: Music is an integral part of our lives and is often played in public places like restaurants. People exposed to music that contained alcohol-related lyrics in a bar scenario consumed significantly more alcohol than those exposed to music with less alcohol-related lyrics. Existing methods to quantify alcohol exposure in song lyrics have used manual annotation that is burdensome and time intensive. In this paper, we aim to build a deep learning algorithm (LYDIA) that can automatically detect and identify alcohol exposure and its context in song lyrics. METHODS: We identified 673 potentially alcohol-related words including brand names, urban slang, and beverage names. We collected all the lyrics from the Billboard's top-100 songs from 1959 to 2020 (N = 6110). We developed an annotation tool to annotate both the alcohol-relation of the word (alcohol, non-alcohol, or unsure) and the context (positive, negative, or neutral) of the word in the song lyrics. RESULTS: LYDIA achieved an accuracy of 86.6% in identifying the alcohol-relation of the word, and 72.9% in identifying its context. LYDIA can distinguish with an accuracy of 97.24% between the words that have positive and negative relation to alcohol; and with an accuracy of 98.37% between the positive and negative context. CONCLUSION: LYDIA can automatically identify alcohol exposure and its context in song lyrics, which will allow for the swift analysis of future lyrics and can be used to help raise awareness about the amount of alcohol in music. Highlights Developed a deep learning algorithm (LYDIA) to identify alcohol words in songs. LYDIA achieved an accuracy of 86.6% in identifying alcohol-relation of the words. LYDIA's accuracy in identifying positive, negative, or neutral context was 72.9%. LYDIA can automatically provide evidence of alcohol in millions of songs. This can raise awareness of harms of listening to songs with alcohol words.

Exploring the relationship between solitary drinking and living without other adults on alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AIMS: The COVID-19 pandemic presents the opportunity to learn about solitary drinking as many people were forced to spend time at home. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between solitary drinking and living without other adults on alcohol consumption. METHODS: A longitudinal study with four survey waves (between May and November 2020) obtained seven-day drinking diary data from Australian adults living in New South Wales. In May, a convenience sample of 586 participants (Mage = 35.3, SD = 14.8; 65.3% women) completed the first wave. Participants then completed a survey in June (n = 319, 54.4% response rate), July/August (n = 225, 38.4% response rate), and November (n = 222, 37.9% response rate). Information about alcohol consumption including risky drinking (more than four drinks on one occasion), household structure, solitary drinking, and demographics were collected. We conducted random-effects panel bivariate and multivariable regression analyses predicting the number of standard drinks and risky drinking. RESULTS: Participants with solitary drinking occasions consumed more and had more risky drinking occasions than participants with no solitary drinking occasions, which was also found to be the case during lockdown. Living without other adults was associated with less consumption and less risky drinking than living with other adults. However, participants who lived without other adults and had frequent solitary drinking occasions (solitary drinking in >50% drinking occasions) reported more consumption than participants without a solitary drinking occasion. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals who consume alcohol alone and live without other adults or spend long periods of time at home may be more at risk of alcohol-related harm.

Support for a browser plug-in blocking online alcohol imagery among Australian participants: A qualitative interview study.

ISSUES ADDRESSED: Alcohol depictions are extremely common online, and there is a reported relationship between alcohol exposure and alcohol use. A browser plug-in specifically designed to block online alcohol depictions may be helpful to prevent the uptake of alcohol or increased alcohol use. METHODS: Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted, examining participants' beliefs about the effects of online alcohol exposure and their support for developing the browser plug-in. RESULTS: Using reflexive thematic analysis, we found participants highlighted a clear impact of viewing alcohol online and offline alcohol use. Participants believed a browser plug-in that blocked alcohol was acceptable and would be especially useful for minors (to prevent alcohol initiation) and those who are aiming to reduce their alcohol use. CONCLUSIONS: Participants emphasised that viewing online alcohol exposure had an impact on drinking behaviours, such as increased craving and temptation. The browser plug-in was considered an easy intervention tool for both parents and people who are experiencing alcohol-related problems or trying to reduce their drinking. SO WHAT?: Participants' continuous support of an alcohol-blocking browser plug-in suggests that future health promotion strategies should consider the development of a prototype plug-in.

Reducing intervention- and research-induced inequalities to tackle the digital divide in health promotion.

Social inequalities are an important contributor to the global burden of disease within and between countries. Using digital technology in health promotion and healthcare is seen by some as a potential lever to reduce these inequalities; however, research suggests that digital technology risks re-enacting or evening widening disparities. Most research on this digital health divide focuses on a small number of social inequality indicators and stems from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries. There is a need for systematic, international, and interdisciplinary contextualized research on the impact of social inequality indicators in digital health as well as the underlying mechanisms of this digital divide across the globe to reduce health disparities. In June 2023, eighteen multi-disciplinary researchers representing thirteen countries from six continents came together to discuss current issues in the field of digital health promotion and healthcare contributing to the digital divide. Ways that current practices in research contribute to the digital health divide were explored, including intervention development, testing, and implementation. Based on the dialogue, we provide suggestions for overcoming barriers and improving practices across disciplines, countries, and sectors. The research community must actively advocate for system-level changes regarding policy and research to reduce the digital divide and so improve digital health for all.

Strategies to support midlife women to reduce their alcohol consumption: an Australian study using human-centred design.

Alcohol consumption is causally associated with long-term health-related consequences, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, and short-term harms, such as accidents and injuries. Alcohol consumption has increased among midlife women (aged 40-65) over the last two decades in high-income countries. This study aimed to centre women's voices by using co-design methodologies to investigate what women identify as strategies that could assist them and other women their age to reduce their alcohol consumption. Human-centred design workshops were undertaken with 39 women, and conventional qualitative content analysis was used to analyse information from written workshop materials to develop categories in the data and count their occurrence. Six categories, or strategies, emerged, listed here from most to least represented: 'Participate in alternative activities to drinking alcohol', 'Track alcohol consumption and set goals', 'Seek support from family and friends', 'Drink alcohol-free beverages', 'Reduce supply of alcohol in the home' and 'Seek professional support'. Our findings identify strategies that are realistic and feasible to midlife women; our sample, however, likely reflects a more affluent subsection of this group, and as such, any focus on individual-level strategies must be complemented by policies that increase equitable access to healthcare and act on the social and commercial determinants of health. An intersectional approach to alcohol and other drug research is required to examine how the interplay of gender and other markers of social identities shape alcohol consumption.

Drinking before sporting events in Australia: An ecological momentary assessment study.

This study investigates the individual and event-level correlates of drinking prior to attending Australian Football League (AFL) games among a sample of Australian spectators.A total of 30 adults (20% female, mean age = 32) completed a series of questionnaires (n = 417) before, during, and after an AFL match on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Cluster-adjusted regression analyses were conducted to examine the impact of individual-level (age, gender, drinking habits) and event-level factors (time and day of game, location of viewing the game, viewing with friends or family) on drinking prevalence and the number of drinks consumed prior to the game.41.4% of participants engaged in drinking before attending an AFL match with a mean of 2.3 drinks consumed by those who reported pre-game consumption. Those aged 30 and over were significantly more likely to engage in pre-game consumption (OR = 14.44, p = 0.024) and consumed significantly more pre-game (B = 1.39, p = 0.030). Drinking before the game was significantly more likely before night games than daytime games (OR = 5.24, p = 0.039). Those who watched the game on-premise consumed significantly more before the game than those who watched the game at a private residence or at home (B = 1.06, p = 0.030). Those who watched games with family also drank significantly less prior to the game than those who attended without family (B=-1.35, p = 0.010).Addressing the contextual factors associated with drinking before the sporting events, such as the time of the game, may assist with efforts to reduce risky alcohol consumption and related harm.

Development and validation of the Alcoholic Beverage Identification Deep Learning Algorithm version 2 for quantifying alcohol exposure in electronic images.

BACKGROUND: Seeing alcohol in media has been demonstrated to increase alcohol craving, impulsive decision-making, and hazardous drinking. Due to the exponential growth of (social) media use it is important to develop algorithms to quantify alcohol exposure efficiently in electronic images. In this article, we describe the development of an improved version of the Alcoholic Beverage Identification Deep Learning Algorithm (ABIDLA), called ABIDLA2. METHODS: ABIDLA2 was trained on 191,286 images downloaded from Google Image Search results (based on search terms) and Bing Image Search results. In Task-1, ABIDLA2 identified images as containing one of eight beverage categories (beer/cider cup, beer/cider bottle, beer/cider can, wine, champagne, cocktails, whiskey/cognac/brandy, other images). In Task-2, ABIDLA2 made a binary classification between images containing an "alcoholic beverage" or "other". An ablation study was performed to determine which techniques improved algorithm performance. RESULTS: ABIDLA2 was most accurate in identifying Whiskey/Cognac/Brandy (88.1%) followed by Beer/Cider Can (80.5%), Beer/Cider Bottle (78.3%), and Wine (77.8%). Its overall accuracy was 77.0% (Task-1) and 87.7% (Task-2). Even the identification of the least accurate beverage category (Champagne, 64.5%) was more than five times higher than random chance (12.5% = 1/8 categories). The implementation of balanced data sampler to address class skewness and the use of self-training to make use of a large, secondary, weakly labeled dataset particularly improved overall algorithm performance. CONCLUSION: With extended capabilities and a higher accuracy, ABIDLA2 outperforms its predecessor and enables the screening of any kind of electronic media rapidly to estimate the quantity of alcohol exposure. Quantifying alcohol exposure automatically through algorithms like ABIDLA2 is important because viewing images of alcoholic beverages in media tends to increase alcohol consumption and related harms.

Effects of exposure to mother's and father's alcohol use on young children's normative perceptions of alcohol.

BACKGROUND: While consumption of alcohol does not often begin until early adolescence, young children are highly capable of internalizing normative information through observational learning. We used a longitudinal multiple-informant family study to examine the impact of exposure to mothers' and fathers' drinking on young children's normative perceptions of who drinks alcohol. METHODS: Three hundred twenty-nine children (4 to 6 years old at baseline [Mage 4.78 (SD = 0.725)], 51% girls) completed the Dutch electronic appropriate beverage task [eABT] where they attributed alcoholic beverages to a variety of persons depicted in an illustrated scenario. Their parents completed an online survey that included information on alcohol use and exposure. RESULTS: Children more frequently exposed to their mothers' drinking provided females shown in the eABT illustrations with alcohol significantly more often than children less frequently exposed to mothers' drinking. There was no effect of mother's exposure on providing males in the eABT with alcoholic beverages. Similarly, children more frequently exposed to their fathers' drinking provided fathers with alcoholic beverages significantly more often than children less frequently exposed to their fathers' drinking. There was no effect of father's exposure on providing the females with alcoholic beverages, nor was there an effect of father's exposure on providing "other males" with alcohol. These patterns held after adjusting for age and sex. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that there are gender-specific effects of exposure to parents' (particularly mothers') drinking on young children's perceptions of person-specific drinking norms. The findings provide unique evidence in a young population group of effects on an understudied dimension of alcohol-related perceptions with implications for future drinking behavior.

Assessing driving-relevant attentional impairment after a multiday drinking session: A two-phase pilot study.

BACKGROUND: The possibility of residual impairment of cognitive performance after multiday drinking sessions is particularly important given the potential for the deleterious effects of fatigue and hangover. This pilot study aimed to devise a methodology to compare sober performance on driving-relevant attentional tasks at the end of a 4-day music festival with performance at varying levels of the breath-alcohol curve. METHODS: Fifty-two participants completed selective and sustained attention tasks at a breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) of 0.00%, 0.05%, and 0.08% following acute dosing in a controlled laboratory setting. A subset of participants (n = 13) were then tested at the conclusion of a 4-day music festival at 0.00% BrAC, with task performance compared with laboratory results. RESULTS: During the laboratory phase, sustained attention was poorer at the 0.05% ascending timepoint only (compared to 0.00% BrAC). During the festival phase, participants made a greater number of errors on the selective attention task predeparture than at 0.00% and 0.05% BrAC in the laboratory. Sustained attention performance was poorer while intoxicated in the laboratory. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the absence of blood alcohol acutely may not be indicative of unimpaired cognitive performance and that other factors related to multiday drinking may produce driving-related attentional deficits. The findings reinforce the need to measure attentional performance in real-world drinking contexts despite the methodological complexities of doing so. A larger study is warranted to replicate the findings and should include attentional measures that either are more sensitive to the effects of acute alcohol intoxication than those in our study or are based on a driving simulator.

Exposure to Parental Alcohol Use Is Associated with Adolescent Drinking Even When Accounting for Alcohol Exposure of Best Friend and Peers.

AIMS: To further disentangle the role of exposure to drinking of role models (parents, peers, best friends) in the development of young adolescent alcohol use, the current study examined (a) whether parent's alcohol use exposure was associated with alcohol use outcomes among adolescents and (b) whether this association remained significant when including best friend and peer drinking exposure. METHODS: A longitudinal study followed 765 adolescents from the Netherlands over 3 years. Adolescents (45.6% male, Mage = 11.78, standard deviation = 0.49 at baseline) completed questionnaires every 6 months, resulting in seven measurement waves. Adolescents reported their own alcohol use and exposure to parental, best friend and peers drinking. RESULTS: Multilevel regression analyses indicated that parental alcohol use exposure was positively associated with a higher likelihood of adolescent alcohol use in the past 6 months, drinking in the last month and binge drinking in the last month. These associations remained significant when including exposure to peer and best friend's alcohol use, also when controlling for alcohol use at the previous timepoint (i.e. change in drinking). These associations were also consistent for boys and girls. CONCLUSIONS: Throughout early adolescence, parental alcohol exposure matters for their offspring's alcohol use, independently of whether peers or their best friend expose them to alcohol or not. Parental alcohol exposure should be considered in prevention efforts to further decrease the number of adolescents that engage in early alcohol use and binge drinking.

Men and Women's Alcohol Consumption by 4- to 8-Year-Olds: A Longitudinal Investigation of Gendered Drinking Norms.

INTRODUCTION: Evidence suggests an association between perceived alcohol-related norms and personal consumption. These perceptions develop over years of observation and exposure to alcohol, likely beginning in early childhood, and likely differing by sex. Understanding the early development of perceptions of drinking may provide insight into the development of gendered drinking practices. The aim of this study was to explore boys' and girls' perceptions about men and women's alcohol consumption and whether and how these change over time as children age. METHODS: 329 children (aged 4-6 years at baseline) completed the Dutch electronic Appropriate Beverage Task annually for three consecutive years (2015 [baseline], 2016, 2017). Regression models were used to examine whether perceptions of consumption varied as a function of the gender of the adult, the participants' sex, and any changes over time. RESULTS: In illustrated pictures, children perceived that men (39%) drank alcoholic beverages more often than women (24%). Men were perceived to drink alcohol more frequently than women at baseline and this difference increased with age. Girls were more likely to perceive men drinking at baseline (aged 4-6), but there were few sex differences by time point three (aged 6-8). DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: From a young age, children perceive that men drink more than women. These perceptions strengthen as children grow older, with young girls perceiving these gender differences at earlier ages than boys. Understanding children's perceptions of gendered drinking norms and their development over time can enable targeted prevention efforts.

When the Burden Gets Overwhelming: Testing an Inverse U-Shaped Relation between Work-Family Conflicts and Alcohol Use.

BACKGROUND: Combining work and family demands often results in conflicts increasing alcohol use. However, extreme levels of conflict may be associated with low volumes consumed. This study tests such an inverse u-shaped relationship and whether this is influenced by the source from which the conflicts mainly arise (family duties and/or work obligations). METHODS: Regression models including linear and quadratic terms were estimated based on a sample of 305 employed parents (mean age = 38.7; 52.1% mothers) in French-speaking Switzerland. RESULTS: No significant gender differences were found for the total level of conflict, but men reported significantly more work conflicts influencing family life than women. A significant positive linear (B = 2.10, SE = 0.72) and negative quadratic (B = -0.60, SE = 0.26) effect was found indicating that parents with low and those with high level of conflict report drinking less alcohol than those with a medium level of conflict. This relation was independent from the underlying sources of conflict and persisted when adjusting for gender, level of employment, number of children, or age of the youngest child. CONCLUSION: This study extends existing knowledge by demonstrating that the relationship between work-family conflicts (WFC) and alcohol use is more complex than previously assumed. To explain the inverse u-shaped relation, future studies should test two major processes: (a) holding multiple roles may cause more conflicts but will also limit the opportunities to engage in alcohol use, (b) those facing high level of WFC are a particular risk group experiencing detrimental health outcomes other than hazardous drinking, and (c) a combination of both.

Wearable Transdermal Alcohol Monitors: A Systematic Review of Detection Validity, and Relationship Between Transdermal and Breath Alcohol Concentration and Influencing Factors.

BACKGROUND: Research on alcohol consumption mostly relies on self-reported data, which are subject to recall bias. Wearable transdermal alcohol concentration (TAC) monitors address this limitation by continuously measuring the ethanol excreted via the skin. This systematic review aims to provide an overview of TAC monitors' reliability to detect alcohol consumption and methods to estimate breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) and number of standard drinks consumed in a given time frame. METHODS: The databases MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Engineering Village, and CINAHL were systematically searched to identify 1,048 empirical research papers published from 2013 onwards, of which 13 were included after full-text screening. The selected studies included 3 TAC monitors: SCRAM™, WristTAS™, and Skyn™. RESULTS: TAC measures of SCRAM, WrisTAS, and Skyn are found to be positively correlated with BrAC (r = 0.56 to 0.79) and/or self-reports (r = 0.62). Using the AMS criteria for detection results in low sensitivity, adjusted criteria can increase the sensitivity of the SCRAM from 39.9 to 68.5%. The WrisTAS and an early prototype of the Skyn showed high failure rates (17 to 38%). Recent advances toward transforming the TAC data into more clinically relevant measures have led to the development of mathematical models and the BrAC Estimator Software. Using TAC data, both approaches produce estimates explaining 70 to 82% of actual BrAC and self-reported drinking or to highly correlate with the actual BrAC measures (ß = 0.90 to 0.91). CONCLUSIONS: Transdermal alcohol monitors offer an opportunity to measure alcohol consumption in a valid and continuous way with mathematical models and software estimating BrAC values improving interpretation of TAC data. However, the SCRAM seems unable to detect low-to-moderate drinking levels using the thresholds and criteria set by the manufacturer. Moreover, the WrisTAS and the Skyn prototype show a high failure rate, raising questions about reliability. Future studies will assess the validity of new-generation wristbands, including the next Skyn generations.

From Age 4 to 8, Children Become Increasingly Aware About Normative Situations for Adults to Consume Alcohol.

AIMS: Limited cross-sectional studies have indicated that young children have some knowledge of the type of situations in which adults usually consume alcohol. However, it is unclear when and how this knowledge develops over time. This study tests the hypothesis that between the ages of 4 and 8, children become more knowledgeable about common drinking situations (e.g. 'partying') and uncommon situations (e.g. 'driving'). METHODS: Data of two independent samples were used: a cross-sectional study (parents) and a three-wave longitudinal study (children). Parents and children were recruited via a convenience and random sampling strategy, respectively. To identify common, ambivalent, and uncommon drinking situations, parents (N = 158; 47% men) completed an online survey in which they indicated how common it is that any adult would drink alcohol in the 18 situations of the Dutch electronic appropriate beverage (eABT). Children (N = 329; 48.9% boys) completed the Dutch eABT to assess their knowledge of situations in which adults usually consume alcohol. RESULTS: General linear model repeated measures with post-hoc pairwise comparisons showed that parents' perceptions of common, ambivalent, and uncommon situations in which adults consume alcohol predicted the initial level and the change over time in children's knowledge of adults' alcohol use in these situations. CONCLUSIONS: Children aged 4-8 become increasingly knowledgeable about drinking norms in specific situations which implies that they know in what kind of situation alcohol consumption is a common human behavior. This knowledge may put them at risk for early alcohol initiation and frequent drinking later in life.

Effects of Question Type and Order When Measuring Peak Consumption of Risky Drinking Events.

AIMS: There is new interest in measuring alcohol consumption during risky drinking events, but there is little guidance on how to best ask such questions. In this study, we contrast two different types of questions on peak consumption over a single heavy drinking occasion. We used a general question that ask respondents to recall the total amount consumed (total consumption question), and location-specific questions that ask respondents to recall consumption in each drinking location (location-specific peak consumption, LSPC). METHODS: Heavy drinkers (≥11 Australian Standard Drinks (ASD) per occasion for males, ≥8 for females) from the second wave of a prospective cohort study were recruited via landline random digit dial from Melbourne in 2012. Respondents were randomly assigned to surveys of different question order, and either first received total consumption (n = 127) or LSPC questions (n = 147). T-tests compared peak consumption between categories stratified by sex and consumption tercile. RESULTS: Mean peak consumption was 12.5 ASD. Irrespective of question order, consumption amounts for total consumption and LSPC questions were not significantly different for both sexes. However, drinkers in the highest tercile asked LSPC questions first provided significantly higher consumption estimates in response to the total consumption question than in response to the LSPC questions. CONCLUSION: At a population level, LSPC and total consumption questions produce similar estimates of peak consumption for risky drinking events. Except for heavy drinkers, general consumption questions may be sufficient when asking about these drinking events in consumption surveys, without the greater response burden of longer LSPC questions.

Exposure to Parental Alcohol Use Rather Than Parental Drinking Shapes Offspring's Alcohol Expectancies.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol expectancies (AE), that is, the anticipated effects of alcohol, start developing early in childhood and are important predictors of alcohol use years later. Whereas previous research has demonstrated that parental drinking relates to children's AE, this study aims to test whether exposure to parental alcohol use mediates the link between parental alcohol use and positive and negative AE among children (6 to 8 years) and early adolescents (12 to 15 years). METHODS: Longitudinal multi-informant family studies were conducted in the Netherlands among children (Study 1 (2015 to 2017): N = 329; 48.9% boys; Mage  = 4.6) and adolescents (Study 2 [2015 to 2018]: N = 755; 45.6% boys; Mage  = 11.3). Fathers' and mothers' alcohol use in terms of quantity and exposure (i.e., the frequency of alcohol use in 9 family-specific situations), and offspring's AE were collected using online questionnaires. RESULTS: Structural equation modeling conducted in the full sample and separately by gender revealed the following: For children, no associations were found in the full sample. However, gender-specific results indicated that fathers' exposure was associated with (and mediated) favorable AE. Among adolescents, fathers' exposure was associated with (and mediated) social and coping AE (both boys and girls) and enhancement AE (only boys). Contrastingly, neither mothers' alcohol use nor its exposure was associated with any AE. Although different associations were found by offspring's gender, strong evidence for gender differences was lacking. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that, for specific expectancies, exposure to fathers' alcohol use shapes offspring's cognitions about the effects of alcohol, rather than fathers' alcohol use in general. Prevention efforts could focus on lowering the degree to which fathers expose their drinking, which might be more easily changeable than drinking in general.

The Role of Sex and Age on Pre-drinking: An Exploratory International Comparison of 27 Countries.

AIMS: This exploratory study aims to model the impact of sex and age on the percentage of pre-drinking in 27 countries, presenting a single model of pre-drinking behaviour for all countries and then comparing the role of sex and age on pre-drinking behaviour between countries. METHODS: Using data from the Global Drug Survey, the percentages of pre-drinkers were estimated for 27 countries from 64,485 respondents. Bivariate and multivariate multilevel models were used to investigate and compare the percentage of pre-drinking by sex (male and female) and age (16-35 years) between countries. RESULTS: The estimated percentage of pre-drinkers per country ranged from 17.8% (Greece) to 85.6% (Ireland). The influence of sex and age on pre-drinking showed large variation between the 27 countries. With the exception of Canada and Denmark, higher percentages of males engaged in pre-drinking compared to females, at all ages. While we noted a decline in pre-drinking probability among respondents in all countries after 21 years of age, after the age of 30 this probability remained constant in some countries, or even increased in Brazil, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. CONCLUSIONS: Pre-drinking is a worldwide phenomenon, but varies substantially by sex and age between countries. These variations suggest that policy-makers would benefit from increased understanding of the particularities of pre-drinking in their own country to efficiently target harmful pre-drinking behaviours.

Depressive Symptoms Amplify Emotional Reactivity to Daily Perceptions of Peer Rejection in Adolescence.

During adolescence, interpersonal stressors such as peer rejection pose challenges to emotion regulation. Yet, very little is known about how these transactional processes unfold in adolescents' daily lives. This study investigated adolescents' (a) emotional reactivity to daily perceptions of peer rejection, which concerns concurrent changes in negative and positive emotions, and (b) emotional recovery from daily perceptions of peer rejection, which concerns subsequent changes in negative and positive emotions. Because depressive symptoms can compromise effectiveness of emotion regulation, it was investigated as a moderator for emotional reactivity and recovery to daily perceptions of peer rejection. The sample consisted of 303 adolescents (59% girls; Mage = 14.20, SD = 0.54; range 13-16 years) who reported depressive symptoms at baseline and completed ecological momentary assessments of emotions and perceived peer rejection at nine random time-points per day for six consecutive days. Results from multi-level modeling analyses showed that perceived peer rejection was related to emotional reactivity (i.e., higher levels of negative emotions and lower levels of positive emotions). This effect was stronger for those with higher depressive symptoms. For emotional recovery, perceived peer rejection had lasting effects on adolescents' negative emotions, but was not related to positive emotions. Depressive symptoms did not moderate effects of perceived peer rejection on emotional recovery. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of how depressive symptoms amplify the emotional impact of perceived peer rejection in adolescents' day-to-day lives.

Development and Initial Validation of the Alcohol Expectancy Task.

BACKGROUND: Although studies have shown that alcohol expectancies are prominent predictors of alcohol initiation and subsequent drinking levels, the questionnaires used to assess these expectancies among young adolescents have been criticized as being time-intensive, biased, and inappropriate. METHODS: In response, we developed the Alcohol Expectancy Task (AET), in which 8 scenarios featuring adults in everyday situations and in different emotional states, accompanied by photographs of a range of beverages (4 alcoholic, 8 nonalcoholic), are displayed on a tablet screen, and participants are then asked to tap on the beverage they think the given person had been drinking. RESULTS: In a first study among 184 adults (75.1% women; mean age = 37.8, SD = 12.2), results from a repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed a strong correspondence between the emotions depicted in the scenarios and how the participants interpreted them. In a second study, this time among 283 third and fourth graders (50.2% girls; mean age = 10.6, SD = 0.69), a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the 4-factor structure of the AET. The results from a logistic regression analysis showed that the more often young adolescents assigned alcohol to the adults in an arousal-positive mood than to those in a sedation-negative mood, the more likely they were to have already consumed alcohol more than twice. Questionnaire-assessed expectancies were unrelated to adolescents' drinking and did not affect the associations of the AET. CONCLUSIONS: The AET has the advantage of being time-efficient and convenient and could overcome certain limitations associated with questionnaire-based assessments of alcohol expectancy.

The Spirit Is Willing, But the Flesh is Weak: Why Young People Drink More Than Intended on Weekend Nights-An Event-Level Study.

BACKGROUND: Heavy alcohol use is common among young adults on weekend nights and is assumed to be intentional. However, little is known about the extent to which heavy consumption is planned prior to the onset of drinking and what factors contribute to drinking more than intended. This study investigates drinking intentions at the beginning of an evening and individual and situational factors associated with a subsequent consumption over the course of multiple nights. METHODS: Using a smartphone application, 176 young people aged 16 to 25 (mean age = 19.1; 49% women) completed questionnaires on drinking intentions, consumption, and drinking environments before, during, and after multiple Friday and Saturday nights (n = 757). Multilevel regressions were used to investigate individual-level and night-level factors associated with previous drinking intentions and subsequent deviations from intentions. RESULTS: Participants intended to consume 2.5 drinks (SD = 2.8) per night yet consumed 3.8 drinks (SD = 3.9) on average. Drinking intentions were higher among those who frequently went out at night and engaged in more frequent predrinking. Participants drank more than intended on 361 nights (47.7%). For both genders, the number of drinks consumed before 8 pm, attending multiple locations, and being with larger groups of friends contributed to higher consumption than intended at the individual and the night levels. Heavier consumption than intended also occurred when drinking away from home for men and when going to nightclubs for women. CONCLUSIONS: Making young adults aware of the tendency to drink more than intended, particularly when drinking begins early in the evening, moves from location to location, and includes large groups of friends, may be a fruitful prevention target. Structural measures, including responsible beverage service, may also help in preventing excessive drinking at multiple locations.