Gamification and motivation: Impact on delay discounting performance.

Delay discounting is a phenomenon strongly associated with impulsivity. However, in order for a measured discounting rate in an experiment to meaningfully generalize to choices made elsewhere in life, participants must provide thoughtful, engaged answers during the assessment. Classic discounting tasks may not optimize intrinsic motivation or enjoyment, and a participant who is disengaged from the task is likely to behave in a way that provides a biased estimate of their discounting function. We assessed degree of delay discounting in a task intended to vary level of participant motivation. This was accomplished by introducing varying levels of gamification, the application of game design principles to a non-game context. Experiment 1 compared three versions of the delay discounting task with differing degrees of gamification and compared performance and task enjoyment across those variations, while Experiment 2 used two conditions (one gamified, one not). Participants found more gamified versions of the task more enjoyable than the other conditions, without producing substantial between-group differences in most cases. Thus, more polished task gameplay can provide a more enjoyable experience for participants without undermining delay discounting effects commonly reported in the literature. We also found that in all experimental conditions, higher levels of interest in or enjoyment of the task tended to be associated with more rapid discounting. This may suggest that low task motivation may result in less impulsive choice and suggests that participants who find delay discounting experiments sufficiently boring may bias assessments of value across delays.

Measures of self-reported identity associated with sex and gender: Relations with collegiate drinking.

OBJECTIVE: Quantitative research has typically relied on categorical measures of sex assigned at birth (SAAB) and gender, with heterogeneous findings in terms of their associations with alcohol-related behavior. This investigation examined continuous indices of self-identification as an alternative to categorical operationalizations in alcohol research. METHOD: Eight hundred ninety-three undergraduate students (74.6% cisgender women, 20.3% cisgender men, 3.9% nonbinary, and 1.2% transgender), recruited from the Midwest and Pacific Northwest of the United States, completed online measures of SAAB (male/female), gender (categorical), continuous indices of identification (femaleness, maleness, and bidirectional), and alcohol consumption (Cahalan Indices; Daily Drinking Questionnaire-Revised; Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test [AUDIT]). RESULTS: Novel continuous measures of identification were associated with categorical indices of SAAB and gender as predicted. While none of the self-identification indices (continuous or categorical) predicted current drinking (consumption in the past 30 days), they evidenced relatively consistent, albeit small effects, across quantity-frequency of drinking and AUDIT scores for current drinkers. Higher scores on maleness and bidirectional indices of identification were associated with greater consumption, while greater endorsement of femaleness and being a cisgender woman (vs. a cisgender man) were related to less drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Continuous self-reported identification items performed well when describing drinking behavior in college students. The inclusion of dimensional scales of identity broadens our ability to capture differing self-conceptualizations in research.

Examination of social smoking classifications using a machine learning approach.

INTRODUCTION: Idiosyncratic definitions of social smoking proliferate in the literature, making cross-study comparison challenging. This project investigated and differentiated four distinct classifications of social smoking using traditional modeling techniques as well as a multilayer perceptron artificial network, a novel machine learning approach suited for heterogeneous, multidimensional data. METHODS: One hundred thirty-three adults recruited from a college in the Pacific Northwest and from Amazon Mechanical Turk, age 18 to 25 (48% men; 37% women; 8% nonbinary; 73% white; 24% Hispanic or Latinx), completed a set of self-report measures assessing common variables associated with cigarette use. Participants also completed a well-validated audio simulation (Smoking-Simulated Intoxication Digital Elicitation) depicting social smoking contexts and reported their willingness to use cigarettes or alcohol in these contexts. RESULTS: Across three of the four social smoking definitions, social smokers consistently scored lower on measures of dependence, frequency, quantity, willingness to smoke, and all use motives than nonsocial smokers. The area under the curve for all four models ranged from excellent to outstanding discrimination within the training set. Frequency of days smoked in the past month was the most important predictor for three of the classification models with a relative importance of 100%. CONCLUSION: The social smoking definitions demonstrated great variability across common cigarette use variables between groups, except for one. The machine learning approach successfully differentiated all four classifications. Recommendations are made for which social smoker classifications to use in subsequent research to maximize appropriate endorsement by the target population.

Social Anxiety, Cannabis Use Motives, and Social Context's Impact on Willingness to Use Cannabis.

Social anxiety is often purported to be a risk factor for increased cannabis use. Cannabis use motives are strong explanatory predictors of cannabis use embedded within social contexts. This investigation explored the impact of social anxiety, cannabis motives, and their interaction on willingness to use cannabis in a community sample of emerging adults. Social anxiety was anticipated to positively correlate with coping and conformity motives and greater willingness to use cannabis in peer social contexts. Motives to use were hypothesized to potentiate social anxiety's influence on cannabis use decision-making. In total, 124 participants completed an audio simulation of social cannabis use contexts (Can-SIDE) and standard measures of social anxiety (SIAS) and use motives (MMM). Contrary to expectations, social anxiety exerted a protective effect on willingness to use cannabis, but only when conformity, social, and expansion motives were at or below average. These effects varied by social contexts of use. Social anxiety leading to increased cannabis use may be most apparent in clinical samples and in high-risk cannabis users, but this pattern was not supported in this sample of community living emerging adults below clinical cutoffs for cannabis use disorder with relatively high social anxiety.

An experimental investigation of peer rejection and social anxiety on alcohol and cannabis use willingness: Accounting for social contexts and use cues in the laboratory.

OBJECTIVE: Evidence suggests that social anxiety (SA) is a risk factor for problematic alcohol and cannabis use, particularly during states of social stress. Unfortunately, laboratory studies to date have overlooked decision-making mechanisms (e.g., use willingness) and contextual features of commonly used social stress tasks that may clarify what is driving these links. The current study begins to address this gap by testing the effects of SA and laboratory-induced peer rejection on acute alcohol and cannabis use willingness within a simulated party setting. METHOD: 80 emerging adults (18-25 years; 70% women) endorsing lifetime alcohol and cannabis use were randomly assigned to experience rejection or neutral social cues. They rated their willingness to use alcohol and cannabis before and after cue exposure within the simulated party. A hierarchical regression tested the main and interaction effects of SA symptoms and experimental condition (Rejection vs. Neutral) on alcohol and cannabis use willingness, controlling for past-year use frequency and willingness to accept any offers (e.g., food and nonalcoholic drinks). RESULTS: There were statistically significant main (but not interaction) effects of SA and experimental condition on cannabis use willingness. Higher SA and Rejection exposure were each associated with greater cannabis use willingness. There were neither main nor interaction effects on alcohol willingness. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that elevated SA increases cannabis use willingness across social contexts, regardless of Rejection exposure, while Rejection exposure increases use willingness similarly across levels of SA. Together, findings reinforce the need to consider social-contextual factors and polysubstance use in laboratory settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Development of the A-DISS rejection task to demonstrate the unique and overlapping affective features of social anxiety and depression.

BACKGROUND: Social anxiety (SA) and depression are prevalent, often comorbid disorders, associated with poor psychosocial functioning. Experimental psychopathology approaches can clarify the transdiagnostic mechanisms underlying these disorders, but most laboratory tasks are limited. We developed and validated the Audio-Dialogue Inductions of Social Stress (A-DISS) experimental task to model real-time rejection sensitivity in a realistic and developmentally relevant context. Participants are asked to imagine overhearing peers at a party talking badly about them (Rejection) or a teacher at their school (Neutral). METHODS: Study 1 focused on identifying and refining stimuli that elicited relevant emotional responses for Rejection (e.g., increased anxiety) and Neutral (e.g., no emotional changes) conditions (N=48). Study 2 examined whether participants' SA and depression symptoms moderated the effects of A-DISS condition (N=52). RESULTS: The Rejection condition elicited higher negative affect/lower positive affect while the Neutral condition sustained stable affect. Findings were consistent across gender and race/ethnicity. Moderation analyses were statistically significant; participants with elevated SA or depression reported feeling more rejected, insecure, and anxious after Rejection than those with below average symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide preliminary validation of a novel peer rejection task for research on understanding the affective experience of real-time rejection overall, especially for those with elevated SA and depression. SA and depression symptoms each uniquely moderating the effects of Rejection exposure on similar affective states, suggests individuals with SA or depression may benefit from interventions targeting specific reactions to rejection/stress and transdiagnostic risk factors.

Comparison of CBD and Cannabis Use Motives.

Cannabidiol, also known as CBD, has increasingly gained popularity as a cure-all product and is now found in products across a variety of industries. Despite the surge in popularity, little remains known about individual motives and patterns of CBD use. The goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences between motives for CBD and cannabis use as well as comparing motives for younger and older users. Participants (N= 171) in U.S. states and territories with legalized cannabis for recreational use were recruited via Amazon MTurk and were asked to complete an anonymous survey assessing their CBD and cannabis use, effects, and motives for use. The greatest differences between self-reported CBD and cannabis use were for side effect profiles. While the recreational use motive was more commonly endorsed for cannabis, use for beauty purposes was more common for CBD. No age group differences emerged for motives to use CBD or cannabis. Future research examining age-related differences in a larger, more age-diverse samples is recommended.

Facilitating Change in Drinking Cognitions and Behaviors Among Three Immigrant Generations of Latinx Youth Through a School-Based Intervention: Findings From a Multi-Site Clinical Trial.

Latinx youth experience disparities in the availability of and participation in evidence-based interventions to reduce hazardous alcohol use. The aim of this secondary data analysis was to examine whether Project Options, a brief, evidence-based alcohol use intervention was beneficial for Latinx participants. A total of 331 first-, second-, and third-generation immigrant Latina and Latino youth who participated in a multi-site, hybrid effectiveness/efficacy clinical trial of the intervention were selected for analyses. Mixed-effects growth models tested changes in drinking cognitions (i.e., perception of peer drinking, intention to drink next month, alcohol use and cessation expectancies) and behaviors (i.e., number of past-month drinking days, average number of drinks per occasion, and maximum number of drinks per occasion) across three time points (i.e., baseline, 4-weeks, and 12-weeks). Consistent with prior Project Options studies, participants with more drinking experience reported greater decreases in perception of peer drinking, intentions to drink next month, and all drinking behaviors than those with less experience. While no changes were observed in expectancies, first-generation participants endorsed lower positive use expectancies than second- and third-generation youth as well as more favorable cessation expectancies than third-generation teens. In concert with prior studies demonstrating the intervention's success in recruitment and retention of Latinx participants, results suggest that Project Options might be a promising school-based intervention for Latinx youth. This intervention has the potential to reach adolescents who might otherwise not participate in traditional programming and help decrease disparities in availability of evidence-based practices for Latinx youth.

Perceived Gender Match and Accepting Alcohol Offers From Peers in Emerging Adulthood.

AIMS: Emerging adulthood (ages 18-25) has been associated with elevated alcohol use, yet little is known regarding gender identity and drinking contexts in this population. Our goals were to examine the effects of perceived gender match on alcohol use decision-making in social settings among emerging adults. METHODS: Participants (N = 135; 64% white, 11 transgender) completed measures of alcohol consumption, alcohol expectancies and motives, and the Collegiate-Simulated Intoxication Digital Elicitation using an established Internet panel. We conducted a series of univariate analyses to examine the relation between perceived gender match and behavioral willingness (BW) to accept alcohol in a social context. RESULTS: Participants identifying as men were significantly more likely to accept offers of alcohol when compared with women. While men and women did not differ in terms of BW when participants perceived a gender-matched actor making the offer, when there was a gender mismatch, women had significantly lower BW when compared with men. Though transgender participants were more likely to endorse hazardous drinking behaviors, there were no observable effects of transgender identity on BW. CONCLUSION: In this sample, we found that men have a higher BW for alcohol than women and that trans identified persons are at increased risk for alcohol misuse. These findings support the need for more research examining the effect of gender identity on patterns of alcohol use and decision-making in mixed-gender contexts for emerging adults.

The interaction between parental behavior and motivations to drink alcohol in high school students.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use during adolescence has been predicted by motives to drink or abstain, as well as parental attitudes to youth drinking. As peers can provide access and opportunities to drink, permissiveness of peers' parents toward alcohol is also of importance. OBJECTIVES: We examined whether adolescent alcohol use is predicted by motives to drink or abstain, strictness of one's own parents, alcohol permissiveness by peers' parents, and an interaction between these factors. METHOD: A sample of high school students from the Pacific Northwest (N = 1056; 49% girls; mage = 15.6) completed alcohol use and parenting measures, the Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised, and the Motives for Abstaining from Alcohol Questionnaire. A zero-inflated negative binomial regression model examined the combined influence of motives, parent's strictness, and peer's parents' permissiveness on past month use. RESULTS: Parental permissiveness was associated with higher rates of drinking among students with low (but not high) conformity motives and motives to abstain. Higher parental permissiveness was associated with higher rates of drinking among students with low (but not high) coping motives. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that parental strictness regarding teen alcohol use extends beyond the family unit to influence adolescent drinking in the broader social network. Parents may have a limited capacity to deter drinking through setting rules and expectations for adolescents who are motived to drink to conform but such limit setting maybe particularly helpful for youth with fewer motives to abstain.

Inaccuracies in survey reporting of alcohol consumption.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption estimates in public health predominantly rely on self-reported survey data which is likely to underestimate consumption volume. Surveys tend to ask specifically about standard drinks and provide a definition or guide in an effort to gather accurate estimates. This study aimed to investigate whether the inclusion of the term standard drinks with pictorial guide is associated with an adjustment in self-reported alcohol volume. METHODS: A web-based survey was administered with AUDIT-C questions repeated at the beginning and end of the survey with and without the standard drink term and guide. The order in which respondents were presented with the different question types was randomised. Two cohorts of university/college students in NSW Australia (n = 122) and the US Pacific Northwest (n = 285) completed the survey online. RESULTS: Australian students did not adjust their responses to questions with and without the standard drink term and pictorial guide. The US students were more likely to adjust their responses based on the detail of the question asked. Those US students who drank more frequently and in greater volume were less likely to adjust/apply a conversion to their consumption. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports previous findings of the inaccuracy of alcohol consumption volume in surveys, but also demonstrates that an assumption of underestimation cannot be applied to all individual reports of consumption. Using additional questions to better understand drink types and serving sizes is a potential approach to enable accurate calculation of underestimation in survey data.

Real-time social stress response and subsequent alcohol use initiation among female adolescents.

Adolescents who are particularly sensitive to social stress may be vulnerable to earlier alcohol consumption and related problems. Although a small literature supports this contention, previous studies mostly relied on retrospective self-report. The current study used discrete-time survival analysis (DTSA) to test whether real-time social stress responding (via laboratory induction) and social anxiety symptoms predicted 12-month alcohol onset in an alcohol-naïve sample of young female adolescents. Anxiety elicited by the task was expected to predict greater and earlier rates of alcohol incidence, particularly among girls with higher levels of self-reported social anxiety symptoms. Participants were 104 community-recruited girls (ages 12-15 years) who completed a modified Trier Social Stress Test and questionnaires; follow-up calls were conducted at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after the laboratory visit. Self-reported anxiety was assessed in response to the stressor following acclimation (baseline), instruction (anticipation), and speech (posttask). By 12 months, 30.8% of the sample had consumed a full alcoholic beverage. The DTSA revealed that girls with higher levels of social anxiety and greater elevations in anticipatory (but not posttask) anxiety compared to baseline had earlier alcohol initiation. This is the first study to examine the role of both laboratory-induced anxious responding and retrospective reports of social anxiety as prospective predictors of alcohol incidence. These preliminary findings suggest that adolescent girls who are more sensitive to social stress may be at risk for experimenting with alcohol earlier than their peers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Drinking refusal self-efficacy: Impacts on outcomes from a multi-site early intervention trial.

This study examines relationships between drink refusal self-efficacy (DRSE) and outcomes in Project Options (PO), an adolescent alcohol use early intervention. 1171 US high school students (39.3% Hispanic, 59.3% girls) participated in PO, reporting their demographics, alcohol use, and drinking reduction efforts at baseline, 30 days and three months later. Items from the Drug Taking Confidence Questionnaire for Adolescents (DTCQ-A) assessed DRSE. DRSE corresponded negatively with drinking at 30 days and, among drinkers, predicted fewer use reduction attempts at 30 days and three months. Results indicate that, unlike in treatment settings, DRSE may not correspond to improved early intervention outcomes.

Towards an understanding of self-directed language as a mechanism of behavior change: A novel strategy for eliciting client language under laboratory conditions.

INTRODUCTION: Change talk (CT) and sustain talk (ST) are thought to reflect underlying motivation and be important mechanisms of behavior change (MOBCs). However, greater specificity and experimental rigor is needed to establish CT and ST as MOBCs. Testing the effects of self-directed language under laboratory conditions is one promising avenue. The current study presents a replication and extension of research examining the feasibility for using simulation tasks to elicit self-directed language. METHODS: First-year college students (N = 92) responded to the Collegiate Simulated Intoxication Digital Elicitation, a validated task for assessing decision-making in college drinking. Verbal responses elicited via free-response and structured interview formats were coded based on established definitions of CT and ST, with minor modifications to reflect the non-treatment context. Associations between self-directed language and alcohol use at baseline and eight months were examined. Additionally, this study examined whether a contextually-based measure of decision-making, behavioral willingness, mediated relationships between self-directed language and alcohol outcome. RESULTS: Healthy talk and unhealthy talk independently were associated with baseline alcohol use across both elicitation formats. Only healthy talk during the free-response elicitation was associated with alcohol use at follow up; both healthy talk and unhealthy talk during the interview elicitation were associated with 8-month alcohol use. Behavioral willingness significantly mediated the relationship between percent healthy talk and alcohol outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the utility of studying self-directed language under laboratory conditions and suggest that such methods may provide a fruitful strategy to further understand the role of self-directed language as a MOBC.

Validation of a contextualized assessment of smoking behaviour in students.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to validate an audio simulation of culture-specific social contexts associated with smoking to provide a medium for researchers to investigate social-contextual influences on tobacco use in the laboratory. METHODS: Eighty-one students (34.6% men; n = 28) listened to five audio simulations of peer social contexts where offers to smoke tobacco were made [Smoking Simulated Intoxication Digital Elicitation (S-SIDE)]. For each social scenario, participants answered questions about their willingness to accept the offer to smoke and completed measures of smoking cognitions and tobacco use. Thirty days later, participants completed online assessments of smoking behaviour. RESULTS: Willingness to accept smoking offers in the S-SIDE procedure was related to smoking at both time-points (T1: r(81)  = 0.37, P < 0.001;T2: r(81)  = 0.36, P = 0.001). Performance on the simulation improved prediction of smoking at 1 month follow-up over and above smoking expectancies, F(2,74)  = 4.27, P = 0.02; R2  = 0.21; ΔR2  = 0.09, as well as other indices of smoking willingness, F(2,75)  = 4.22, P = 0.02; R2  = 0.22: ΔR2  = 0.09, while neither expectancies nor willingness was related to smoking above and beyond the simulation. CONCLUSIONS: Social context plays an important role in smoking-related decision-making and simulated social contexts have potential for the study of context-related decision-making in addiction.

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.

Drinking Motives and Willingness to Drink Alcohol in Peer Drinking Contexts.

Drinking motives are important proximal predictors of alcohol consumption in adolescents and emerging adults (EAs). Despite the importance of peer context on alcohol use decision-making, research on drinking motives is commonly divorced from the contexts where such decisions are made. Behavioral willingness (BW), or openness to engaging in a given behavior, is a contextually dependent aspect of nondeliberative decision-making for youth. As BW and drinking motives are proximal predictors of alcohol use, it was hypothesized that they would interact in the prediction of later drinking. Eighty-seven EAs reported their BW in simulated drinking contexts, drinking motives, and alcohol consumption upon entering college as well as drinking patterns 8 months later. Context-specific BW potentiated coping motives' impact on increased alcohol consumption and potentially hazardous drinking at the end of participants' first year. These findings support the importance of BW and context in understanding motivation's role in drinking behavior for EAs.

Impact of Ethnic Composition on Mechanisms of Change in School-Based Substance Use Intervention Groups.

Delivering alcohol use intervention services in the school setting represents a key approach to engaging youth of all backgrounds, particularly underserved populations, in such programming. Relative progress has been made toward implementing culturally responsive services for youth; however, little is known about the role of ethnic composition on group processes purported to underlie mechanisms of change. We examined associations between ethnic group composition and therapeutic processes within a voluntary, school-based alcohol use intervention at seven schools across three cities (N groups = 353). Ethnic composition was characterized as: group ethnic diversity on a continuum, group ethnic homogeneity (i.e., where at least 66% of participants shared the same ethnicity), and comparing groups where one of the three largest ethnicities in the sample reached the majority (i.e., African-American vs. Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic white). Ratings on group processes were obtained from participants (satisfaction; belonging), facilitators (empathy; rapport), and coders (engagement; responsiveness). Mixed-effects models revealed that students in groups with African-American and Hispanic majorities reported a higher sense of satisfaction compared to groups with non-Hispanic white majorities. Facilitators endorsed expressing empathy more frequently with majority African-American and Hispanic groups than with non-Hispanic white groups. Study findings highlight the importance of considering different dimensions of ethnic composition when examining mechanisms of change in group intervention research.

A novel application in the study of client language: Alcohol and marijuana-related statements in substance-using adolescents during a simulation task.

The current study explored whether laboratory-based techniques can provide a strategy for studying client language as a mechanism of behavior change. Specifically, this study examined the potential of a simulation task to elicit healthy talk, or self-motivational statements in favor of healthy behavior, related to marijuana and alcohol use. Participants (N = 84) were adolescents reporting at least 10 lifetime substance use episodes recruited from various community settings in an urban Pacific Northwest setting. Participants completed the Adolescent Simulated Intoxication Digital Elicitation (A-SIDE), a validated paradigm for assessing substance use decision making in peer contexts. Participants responded to 4 types of offers in the A-SIDE: (a) marijuana, (b) food (marijuana control), (c) alcohol, and (d) soda (alcohol control). Using a validated coding scheme adapted for the current study, client language during a structured interview assessing participants' response to the simulated offers was evaluated. Associations between percent healthy talk (PHT, calculated by dividing the number of healthy statements by the sum of all substance-related statements) and cross-sectional outcomes of interest (previous substance use, substance use expectancies, and behavioral willingness) were explored. The frequency of substance-related statements differed in response to offer type; rate of PHT did not. PHT was associated with behavioral willingness to accept the offer. However, PHT was not associated with decontextualized measures of substance use. Associations between PHT and global expectancies were limited. Simulation methods may be useful in investigating the impact of context on self-talk and to systematically explore client language as a mechanism of change. (PsycINFO Database Record