Citation

Modecki K, Phipps DJ, Cox A, Loxton NJ, Hamilton K, Caton N, Elwin M. Addict. Behav. 2022; 135: e107432.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.addbeh.2022.107432

PMID

35939962

Abstract

Problematic alcohol consumption represents a critical risk to young adults' mental and physical health (WHO, 2018). As a result, understanding negative consequences that stem from young adults' binge drinking and inter-related factors that may mitigate increases in binge drinking has much to offer scholars and practitioners. In the current study, a two-wave random intercept cross-lagged panel design was used to examine the reciprocal inter-relations among stress, anticipated regret, and binge drinking within a lab-based study of young adults (N = 109, M(age) = 19.85). Within-person findings indicated that high life stress and low anticipated regret predicted subsequent increases in binge drinking three months later, accounting for between-person stability in these constructs. All told, findings point to life stress as a robust predictor of increased binge drinking, and anticipated regret as a protective factor associated with reductions in binge drinking among young adults. Given that anticipated regret signalled subsequent drinking reductions, future research should consider ways to foreground anticipation of regret as a protective factor mitigating binge drinking increases.

Language: en

Keywords

Alcohol; Stress; Binge drinking; Regret; RI-CLPM; Young adult