Citation

Wills TA, Simons JS, Sussman S, Knight R. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2016; 163(Suppl 1): S37-S45.

Affiliation

Prevention and Control Program, University of Hawaii Cancer Center, Honolulu, HI, United States. Electronic address: rknight@cc.hawaii.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.08.039

PMID

27306730

PMCID

PMC4911542

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: There is little knowledge about how emotional regulation contributes to vulnerability versus resilience to substance use disorder. With younger adolescents, we studied the pathways through which emotion regulation attributes are related to predisposing factors for disorder.

METHODS: A sample of 3561 adolescents (M age 12.5 years) was surveyed. Measures for emotional self-control (regulation of sadness and anger), emotional dysregulation (angerability, affective lability, and rumination about sadness or anger), and behavioral self-control (planfulness and problem solving) were obtained. A structural model was analyzed with regulation attributes related to six intermediate variables that are established risk or protective factors for adolescent substance use (e.g., academic involvement, stressful life events). Criterion variables were externalizing and internalizing symptomatology and positive well-being.

RESULTS: Indirect pathways were found from emotional regulation to symptomatology through academic competence, stressful events, and deviance-prone attitudes and cognitions. Direct effects were also found: from emotional dysregulation to externalizing and internalizing symptomatology; emotional self-control to well-being; and behavioral self-control (inverse) to externalizing symptomatology. Emotional self-control and emotional dysregulation had independent effects and different types of pathways.

CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents scoring high on emotional dysregulation are at risk for substance dependence because of more externalizing and internalizing symptomatology. Independently, youth with better behavioral and emotional self-control are at lower risk. This occurs partly through relations of regulation constructs to environmental variables that affect levels of symptomatology (e.g., stressful events, poor academic performance). Effects of emotion regulation were found at an early age, before the typical onset of substance disorder.

Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Language: en