Do symptoms of depression and anxiety contribute to heavy episodic drinking? A 3-wave longitudinal study of adult community members.

Heavy episodic drinking (or binge drinking) is a significant public health concern. Self-medication using alcohol is often thought to explain the co-occurrence of heavy episodic drinking with depression and anxiety. Yet, there is little longitudinal work examining both depressive and anxiety symptoms and how they are independently related to heavy episodic drinking in adult community samples. To this end, we invited adult community members (N = 102) to come to the lab to complete validated measures of depressive symptoms (composite of CES-D-SF, SCL-90-D, and DASS-21-D), anxiety symptoms (DASS-21-A), and heavy episodic drinking (composite of frequency, severity, and perceptions) at baseline, and again three and six months later. Using a three-wave cross-lagged panel model, we tested reciprocal relations between heavy episodic drinking and each internalizing symptom. We found strong temporal stability in our study variables. Depressive symptoms were associated with increases in heavy episodic drinking, and anxiety symptoms were associated with decreases in heavy episodic drinking. In contrast, heavy episodic drinking did not predict either internalizing symptom over time. Results are consistent with the notion that individuals with greater depressive symptoms use alcohol to self-medicate, and that anxiety symptoms (particularly autonomic arousal) may be potentially protective against future heavy episodic drinking.

Identification of psychiatric inpatient recovery trajectories using routine outcome monitoring with emerging adults.

Early intervention for emerging adults with addiction and mental health disorders is beneficial for long-term recovery. The present study investigated the utility of routine outcome monitoring during acute inpatient hospitalization for identifying emerging adults at risk of poor outcomes. This is a retrospective study using latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to identify patient groups with different recovery trajectories, with additional analyses to clarify the characteristics of these trajectory groups. The results identified four patient groups: Rapid responders (38%), gradual responders (34%), high distress non-responders (9%), and low distress non-responders (19%). The high distress non-responding group is characterized by behaviours and disorders associated with ambivalent care seeking: Voluntary admission, longer length of stay, lower service satisfaction, higher outpatient service utilization, elevated risk of emergency department presentation and hospital readmission, and depression/personality disorder diagnosis. The low distress group is characterized by behaviours and disorders associated with treatment rejection: Involuntary admission, shorter length of stay, reduced post-discharge service utilization, and psychotic disorder diagnosis. The results have implications for identifying at-risk youth and developing stepped-care models for more effective and efficient inpatient care.

"It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times": A Qualitative Investigation of Perfectionism and Drinking Narratives in Undergraduate Students.

Perfectionism is a transdiagnostic risk factor for mental health and interpersonal difficulties, but research on perfectionism and alcohol use in emerging adults remains equivocal. Qualitative research methods are underutilized in this area, and inductive analysis of drinking narratives in undergraduate perfectionists may help clarify conflicting results and support novel approaches to quantitative inquiry in this area. We interviewed 20 undergraduates high in perfectionism (6 adaptive perfectionists and 14 maladaptive perfectionists) using a narrative interview, with analyses focusing on a situation involving alcohol use. We coded interviews for emergent themes using thematic analysis. Five themes emerged as follows: (1) drinking as a social experience, (2) suffering consequences, (3) learning from alcohol, (4) alcohol use as escapism, and (5) reluctance and moderation. Our results add to existing literature by highlighting the interpersonal conflict in perfectionistic people's experience in relation to alcohol use during emerging adulthood. Results also suggest perfectionistic people may use alcohol and intoxication as a way to facilitate a "release" from unpleasant situations or emotions. Perfectionists reported both positive and negative experiences, which lends support for using a narrative perspective to help overcome preexisting assumptions about adaptive and maladaptive qualities of perfectionism.

One of these things is not like the others: Testing trajectories in drinking frequency, drinking quantity, and alcohol-related problems in undergraduate women.

Alcohol misuse is an increasingly common problem in undergraduate women. Building upon research suggesting that maturing out of risky patterns of alcohol use can occur, our study tested how three facets of alcohol use change differentially over time in undergraduate women. A sample of 218 undergraduate women (M age=20.6years) participated in a four-wave, 18-month longitudinal study measuring frequency of alcohol consuming occasions, quantity of alcohol consumed per occasion, and alcohol-related problems. Growth curve analyses showed that alcohol frequency remained stable over 18months, whereas alcohol quantity and problems decreased over time. Results indicate undergraduate women are drinking with similar frequency over time, but they are drinking a smaller quantity of alcohol per drinking occasion and they are experiencing fewer alcohol-related problems. Findings help clarify the maturity principle by showing a different pattern of drinking as undergraduate women age that involves lower quantities of alcohol per drinking occasion and less problematic alcohol use, but not necessarily less frequent drinking.

Positive Affect and Cognitive Restoration: Investigating the Role of Valence and Arousal.

Positive moods are thought to restore self-control resources following depletion. However, it is not well understood whether this effect is due to affective valence (pleasantness), arousal (activation), or a combination of both. Across four studies, we set out to investigate the role of positive moods on cognitive and behavioral measures of self-regulation in an ego-depletion paradigm. In studies 1 and 2, we independently manipulated affective valence and arousal and assessed self-regulation with a Stroop task. Results did not suggest a restorative effect of either on cognitive resources. In study 3, we employed both behavioral (the 'handgrip task') and cognitive (Stroop) assessments of self-regulation. Again, no significant effect of mood was observed on the Stroop task. Additionally, participants did not persist significantly longer on the handgrip task following a positive mood induction. Finally, in study 4, high vs. low states of arousal were manipulated and self-regulation was assessed via pre- and post-manipulation Stroop performance. In study 4, Stroop performance improved slightly more across time points for those in the high arousal condition than for those in the low arousal condition. Therefore, across four studies, we failed to find a consistent pattern of results suggesting that positive moods restore cognitive resources.

Shifting patterns of variance in adolescent alcohol use: Testing consumption as a developing trait-state.

While average rates of change in adolescent alcohol consumption are frequently studied, variability arising from situational and dispositional influences on alcohol use has been comparatively neglected. We used variance decomposition to test differences in variability resulting from year-to-year fluctuations in use (i.e., state-like) and from stable individual differences (i.e., trait-like) using data from the Project on Adolescent Trajectories and Health (PATH), a cohort-sequential study spanning grades 7 to 11 using three cohorts starting in grades seven, eight, and nine, respectively. We tested variance components for alcohol volume, frequency, and quantity in the overall sample, and changes in components over time within each cohort. Sex differences were tested. Most variability in alcohol use reflected state-like variation (47-76%), with a relatively smaller proportion of trait-like variation (19-36%). These proportions shifted across cohorts as youth got older, with increases in trait-like variance from early adolescence (14-30%) to later adolescence (30-50%). Trends were similar for males and females, although females showed higher trait-like variance in alcohol frequency than males throughout development (26-43% vs. 11-25%). For alcohol volume and frequency, males showed the greatest increase in trait-like variance earlier in development (i.e., grades 8-10) compared to females (i.e., grades 9-11). The relative strength of situational and dispositional influences on adolescent alcohol use has important implications for preventative interventions. Interventions should ideally target problematic alcohol use before it becomes more ingrained and trait-like.

Talking About Sex When Sex Is Painful: Dyadic Sexual Communication Is Associated With Women's Pain, and Couples' Sexual and Psychological Outcomes in Provoked Vestibulodynia.

Provoked vestibulodynia (PVD) is a recurrent vulvovaginal pain condition associated with psychological and sexual consequences for affected women and their partners, including lower quality of dyadic sexual communication compared to pain-free couples. Although greater sexual communication is associated with positive sexual and relational outcomes for both pain-free couples and couples experiencing painful sex, little is known about its role in women's pain and psychological outcomes, especially in a relational context. The present study examined associations between dyadic sexual communication and pain, sexual satisfaction, sexual functioning, and depressive symptoms in a sample of 107 couples in which the woman was diagnosed with PVD via a standardized gynecological assessment. Women completed a measure of pain intensity, and both members of the couple completed measures of their dyadic sexual communication, sexual satisfaction, sexual functioning, and depressive symptoms. Analyses were guided by the actor-partner interdependence model. Women and partners' own perceptions of greater dyadic sexual communication were associated with their own greater sexual satisfaction and sexual functioning, and lower depressive symptoms. Partners' perceptions of greater dyadic sexual communication were also associated with women's lower pain and greater sexual satisfaction. Results point to the importance of dyadic coping conceptualizations for both individual and interpersonal outcomes in PVD. Dyadic sexual communication may be a key treatment target for interventions aimed at improving the pain and psychological and sexual impairments of women with PVD and their partners.

Personality and affective forecasting: trait introverts underpredict the hedonic benefits of acting extraverted.

People report enjoying momentary extraverted behavior, and this does not seem to depend on trait levels of introversion-extraversion. Assuming that introverts desire enjoyment, this finding raises the question, why do introverts not act extraverted more often? This research explored a novel explanation, that trait introverts make an affective forecasting error, underpredicting the hedonic benefits of extraverted behavior. Study 1 (n = 97) found that trait introverts forecast less activated positive and pleasant affect and more negative and self-conscious affect (compared to extraverts) when asked to imagine acting extraverted, but not introverted, across a variety of hypothetical situations. Studies 2-5 (combined n = 495) found similar results using a between-subjects approach and laboratory situations. We replicated findings that people enjoy acting extraverted and that this does not depend on disposition. Accordingly, the personality differences in affective forecasts represent errors. In these studies, introverts tended to be less accurate, particularly by overestimating the negative affect and self-consciousness associated with their extraverted behavior. This may explain why introverts do not act extraverted more often (i.e., they overestimate hedonic costs that do not actually materialize) and have implications for understanding, and potentially trying to change, introverts' characteristically lower levels of happiness.