Attachment insecurity, heart rate variability, and perceived social support in a diverse sample of young adults.

Psychological and physical factors are robustly associated with perceived social support. Drawing from the literature on attachment style in adults and psychophysiology, we examined the possibility that the interaction of attachment insecurity and resting heart rate variability (HRV) was associated with perceived social support in a diverse sample of young adults living in the U.S (N = 145, Mage = 20.45) that was majority Latino (n = 77). Analyses revealed three key findings. First, in the overall sample, attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety were negatively associated with perceived social support, but in the Latino sample, only attachment avoidance was negatively associated with perceived social support. Second, HRV was not associated with perceived social support in the overall sample nor in the Latino sample. Third, attachment insecurity and HRV interacted to predict perceived social support only in the Latino sample such that, for those with lower levels of HRV, attachment anxiety was positively associated with perceived social support. This study underscores the importance of examining both psychological and physiological processes with careful consideration of ethnicity/culture in order to better understand perceived social support.

The Link Between Adversity and Dating Violence Among Adolescents Hospitalized for Psychiatric Treatment: Parental Emotion Validation as a Candidate Protective Factor.

Adolescents are at risk for becoming victims or perpetrators for a variety of forms of dating violence, including cyber violence, physical violence, psychological abuse, and sexual abuse. Interestingly, a robust predictor of dating violence is adverse experiences during childhood; however, factors that could mitigate the risk of dating violence for those exposed to adversity have seldom been examined. Using the cumulative stress hypothesis as a lens, the current study examined severity of adverse experiences as a predictor of dating violence within a sample at risk for both victimization and perpetration of dating violence: An adolescent (12-17 years old; N = 137) sample who were receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment. First, the current study aimed to replicate previous findings to determine whether adversity predicted dating violence and whether this varied by gender. Then, the current study examined one factor that could mitigate the relation between adversity and dating violence-parental emotion validation. High rates of maternal emotion validation resulted in no relation between adversity and dating violence perpetration and victimization; however, the relation was present at average and low levels of maternal emotion validation. Next, by adding gender as an additional moderator to the model, we found that high rates of paternal emotion validation extinguished the relation between adversity and dating violence perpetration, but only for adolescent boys. This pattern was not found for maternal emotion validation. Interestingly, the relation between adversity and dating violence victimization did not vary as a function of maternal or paternal validation of emotion for either child gender. These findings are discussed in terms of their meaning within this sample, possible future directions, and their implications for the prevention of dating violence.

Attachment anxiety and trauma history uniquely and interactively predict adjustment during and following deployment among military partners.

The psychological impact of military deployment on nondeploying partners of service members is only recently gaining attention in the literature, with preliminary findings suggesting that partners of military service members experience significant mental health consequences of deployment, but with little work examining factors that could heighten or attenuate risk for maladjustment in response to deployment. The current study uses attachment theory as a guide to explore the unique and interactive effects of two factors likely to increase risk for maladjustment among nondeploying partners: attachment anxiety and trauma history. Participants (N = 86) completed assessments 2 weeks prior to and 2 weeks following their partners' deployment departure, as well as 2 weeks following their partners' return. Attachment anxiety and trauma history independently contributed to adjustment during and following the deployment, with partners high in either factor at greatest risk for maladjustment and partners high in both exhibiting the most linguistic signs of threat orientation. Further, low attachment anxiety was associated with better adjustment when trauma history was low or moderate, but not high; similarly, low trauma history was associated with better adjustment when attachment anxiety was at low or moderate, but not high. In terms of postdeployment adjustment, partners with less trauma history reported less distress. Somewhat surprisingly, among those with more trauma history, higher attachment anxiety was associated with less risk for maladjustment. We discuss these findings in terms of their implication for theory and prevention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Being Blunt About Marijuana: Parent Communication About Marijuana with Their Emerging Adult Children.

While research suggests that parents continue to influence students' marijuana use after matriculation to college, there is limited data examining how parents communicate about marijuana use and what impact parent marijuana communication has on college student outcomes. The aim of the current study is to investigate the types of parent marijuana messages that college students receive and the relationship between parent communication and students' marijuana attitudes and behaviors. Students (N = 506) completed a survey assessing marijuana approval, use, negative consequences, and parent communication. A factor analysis of parent communication items yielded three factors: risk communication, permissive communication, and marijuana use communication. Risk communication was the most common form of communication. In multivariate models, risk communication was associated with increased odds of a student remaining abstinent but not with frequency of marijuana use or negative consequences. Greater permissive communication was associated with more approving student attitudes, greater odds of non-abstinence, more frequent use in the past year, and more negative consequences. These findings highlight the need to consider the different types of messages parents deliver when designing interventions aimed at engaging parents in marijuana prevention efforts.

Negative affect as a moderator of the relationship between hookup motives and hookup consequences.

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the extent to which negative affect moderates the relationships between distinct hookup motives and hookup consequences. PARTICIPANTS: Data were collected from 271 heavy-drinking undergraduate college students. METHODS: Students from 3 US universities completed online surveys assessing hooking up-related motives, behaviors, and consequences. RESULTS: The results showed that conformity motives to hookup and negative affect predicted hookup consequences. Furthermore, negative affect moderated the relationship between hooking up for relationship reasons and hookup consequences. Specifically, among students with high negative affect, hooking up to secure a long-term relationship was positively associated with hookup consequences whereas among students with low negative affect, securing a long-term relationship was negatively associated with hookup consequences. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the role that motives and negative affect play in the prediction of negative hookup consequences. Moreover, the findings from the current study have the potential to inform prevention efforts designed to reduce hookup consequences.

Do Protective Behavioral Strategies Mediate the Effect of Preparty Motives on Event-Level Preparty Alcohol Use?

BACKGROUND: Research suggests that protective behavioral strategies (PBS) serve as one mechanism through which drinking motives can influence alcohol use. Whether these findings generalize to preparty drinking has yet to be examined. OBJECTIVES: The current study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by examining three types of PBS (Limiting/Stopping Drinking, Manner of Drinking, and Serious Harm Reduction) as mediators of the relationship between preparty-specific drinking motives (e.g., Interpersonal Enhancement, Intimate Pursuit, Situational Control, and Barriers to Consumption) and event-level preparty drinking. METHOD: Participants were 986 college students from two universities taking part in a larger alcohol intervention study who reported on the amount of alcohol they consumed during a recent preparty occasion. RESULTS: After controlling for general drinking motives, campus affiliation, and gender, Manner of Drinking PBS (e.g., avoiding drinking games and consuming shots of liquor) were found to mediate the relationship between preparty-specific motives and event-level preparty drinking. Conclusions/ Importance: The findings demonstrate that PBS may be helpful to assuage the strong association between preparty drinking motives and preparty drinking. The findings also point to several areas for further exploration, including the identification of PBS which are specific to prepartying.

Different digital paths to the keg? How exposure to peers' alcohol-related social media content influences drinking among male and female first-year college students.

Despite speculation that peers' alcohol-related content on social media sites (SMS) may influence the alcohol use behaviors of SMS frequenting college students, this relationship has not been investigated longitudinally. The current prospective study assesses the relationship between exposure to peers' alcohol-related SMS content and later-drinking among first-year college students. Among 408 first-year students, total exposure to peers' alcohol-related content on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat during the initial 6 weeks of college predicted alcohol consumption 6 months later. The rather robust relationship persisted even after students' and close friends drinking were accounted for, indicating that alcohol references on SMS do not simply reflect alcohol use behaviors that would otherwise be observed in the absence of SMS and be predictive of later alcohol use. Findings also illuminate important gender differences in the degree to which peers' alcohol-related SMS content influenced later drinking behavior as well as psychological mediators of this relationship. Among females, enhancement drinking motives and beliefs about the role of alcohol in the college experience fully mediated the relationship between SMS alcohol exposure and later drinking. Males, however, evidenced a much stronger predictive relationship between SMS alcohol exposure and second semester drinking, with this relationship only partially explained by perceptions of drinking norms, enhancement drinking motives, and beliefs about the role of alcohol in the college experience. Implications of these findings for college drinking prevention efforts and directions for future research are discussed.