Citation

Bachrach RL, Zhou A, Kumar L, Lyons G, Skrzynski CJ, Creswell KG. Alcohol Clin. Exp. Res. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/acer.14994

PMID

36507856

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Researchers have long been interested in identifying risk factors for binge drinking behavior (4+/5+ drinks/occasion for females/males), but many studies have demonstrated that a substantial proportion of young adults are drinking at levels far beyond (often 2-3 times) the standard binge threshold (Patrick et al., 2017). The consumption of such large quantities of alcohol, typically referred to as high-intensity drinking (HID), can cause severe alcohol-related problems, such as blackouts, unintended sexual experiences, and even death (Hingson et al., 2017). The proposed study will be the first to investigate whether personality is indirectly associated with the likelihood of HID via drinking motives in a large (N=999) sample of underage young adult drinkers. We hypothesized that trait neuroticism would be indirectly associated with the likelihood of HID via coping motives and that extraversion would be indirectly associated with the likelihood of HID via social and enhancement motives.

METHODS: To investigate these hypotheses, we used two archival datasets that recruited current underage (18-20 year old) adult drinkers residing in the United States from online panel services. Participants completed self-report survey items assessing constructs of interest. To investigate the role of drinking motives in the association between personality and HID, both the direct and indirect effects via three path analyses were calculated.

RESULTS: Findings revealed that neuroticism was partially indirectly associated with the likelihood of HID via coping motives (b=0.02, SE=0.004, p<0.01). In addition, extraversion was indirectly associated with the likelihood of HID via social (b=0.031, SE=0.002, p<0.01) and enhancement motives (b=0.01, SE=0.002, p=0.01).

CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide an initial step toward examining the interplay between personality traits, drinking motives and high-intensity drinking in underage drinkers and point to the need for longitudinal studies assessing these associations.

Language: en

Keywords

personality; drinking motives; emerging adulthood; High-intensity drinking