The cost of minority stress: Risky alcohol use and coping-motivated drinking behavior in African American college students.

A motivational drinking framework is utilized to understand the relationship between minority stressors (e.g., race-related stress and acculturative stress) and alcohol use behaviors (risky alcohol use and coping-motivated drinking) among a large sample of Black American college students. Six hundred forty-nine Black college students from 8 colleges and universities in the United States were recruited as part of a large, multiwave, cross-sectional study investigating the stress and coping experiences of Black emerging adults. Results from the current investigation provide support for the independent contributions of acculturative stress and race-related stress to the risky alcohol use behavior of Black college students, while acculturative stress significantly predicted coping-motivated drinking behaviors in the sample. Findings underscore the need to better understand the unique relationships between minority stress and risky alcohol use behaviors of Black college students, namely, relationships not shared by their nonminority peers that increase their risk of problem drinking.

Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Reactivity to Acute Stress: an Investigation into the Roles of Perceived Stress and Family Resources.

Rurally situated African Americans suffer from chronic exposure to stress that may have a deleterious effect on health outcomes. Unfortunately, research on potential mechanisms that underlie health disparities affecting the African American community has received limited focus in the scientific literature. This study investigated the relationship between perceived stress, family resources, and cortisol reactivity to acute stress. A rural sample of African American emerging adults (N = 60) completed a battery of assessments, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), and provided four samples of salivary cortisol: prior to receiving TSST instructions, prior to conducting the speech task, immediately following the TSST, and 15-20 min following the TSST. As predicted, cortisol levels increased in response to a controlled laboratory inducement of acute stress. Moreover, diminished levels of family resources were associated with blunted cortisol reactivity to acute stress. Of note, higher levels of perceived stress over the past month and being male were independently associated with lower levels of cortisol at baseline. Lack of family resources had a blunting relationship on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity. These findings provide biomarker support for the relationship between family resources-an indicator associated with social determinants of health-and stress physiology within a controlled laboratory experiment. Identifying mechanisms that work toward explanation of within-group differences in African American health disparities is both needed and informative for culturally informed prevention and intervention efforts.

Effects of Evaluative Context in Implicit Cognitions Associated with Alcohol and Violent Behaviors.

INTRODUCTION: A large body of literature has substantiated the relationship between alcohol use and violent behaviors, but little consideration has been given to implicit interactions between the two. This study examines the implicit attitudes associated with alcoholic drinks and violent behaviors, and their relationship to explicit reports of problematic behaviors associated with alcohol use. METHODS: The Go/No-Go Association Task (GNAT; Nosek & Banaji, 2001) was used to test the effect of distracters (noise) on implicit cognitions associated with alcoholic drinks and violent behaviors. Data was collected from 148 students enrolled in a Midwestern university. RESULTS: Irrespective of contextual distractions, participants consistently exhibited negative implicit cognitions associated with violent behaviors. However, context impacted the valence of cognitions associated with alcoholic beverages. Implicit cognitions associated with alcoholic beverages were negative when nonalcoholic beverages were used as distracters, but were positive when licit and illicit drugs were used as distracters. Implicit cognitions associated with alcoholic drinks were correlated with implicit cognitions associated with violent behaviors and explicit measures of problem drinking, problem drug-related behaviors, and measures of craving, to name a few. CONCLUSION: Evaluative context can have an effect on the expressed appraisal of implicit attitudes. Implications, limitations, and future directions for using the GNAT in addictions research are discussed.

The Relationship Between Psychological Distress, Negative Cognitions, and Expectancies on Problem Drinking: Exploring a Growing Problem Among University Students.

Few studies have sought to understand the concurrent relationship between cognitive and affective processes on alcohol use and negative alcohol-related consequences, despite both being identified as predictive risk factors in the college population. More research is needed to understand the relationships between identified factors of problem drinking among this at-risk population. The purpose of this study was to test if the relationship between psychological distress and problem drinking among university students (N = 284; M-age = 19.77) was mediated by negative affect regulation strategies and positive alcohol-related expectancies. Two latent mediation models of problem drinking were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The parsimonious three-path mediated latent model was supported by the data, as evidenced by several model fit indices. Furthermore, the alternate saturated model provided similar fit to the data, but contained several direct relationships that were not statistically significant. The relationship between psychological distress and problem drinking was mediated by an extended contributory chain, including negative affect regulation and positive alcohol-related expectancies. Implications for prevention and treatment, as well as future directions, are discussed.