Angelo M. DiBello

Evaluation of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 among Treatment-Seeking Smokers

The Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3; Taylor et al., 2007) is a self-report assessment of anxiety sensitivity, reflecting an individuals tendency to misinterpret the meaning of anxiety-relevant sensations. Despite this construct being related to a wide array of clinically significant smoking maintenance and relapse processes, the psychometric properties of scores on the ASI-3 have not yet been investigated for use among smokers. Therefore, the current study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the scores on the ASI-3 in a sample of cigarette smokers. Participants were treatment-seeking daily smokers who completed the ASI-3 at a precessation visit (Time 1, N = 464) and 3 months postcessation attempt (Time 2, n = 137). Confirmatory factor analyses results of the scores on ASI-3 at Time 1 and Time 2 revealed the hypothesized 3-factor model, including physical, social, and cognitive concerns. In addition, the ASI-3 factor scores evidenced factor stability, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and convergent, and discriminant, and predictive validity. The present study provides evidence in support of the validity and reliability of scores on the ASI-3 as a measure of anxiety sensitivity among treatment-seeking cigarette smokers.

Perceptions of partner drinking problems, regulation strategies and relationship outcomes☆

The current research evaluates how perceptions of ones partners drinking problem relate to attempts to regulate partner behavior and relationship functioning, and whether this varies by perceptions of ones own drinking. New measures are offered for Thinking about your Partners Drinking (TPD) and Partner Management Strategies (PMS). Participants included 702 undergraduates who had been in a romantic relationship for at least three months. Participants completed an online survey assessing perceptions of problematic drinking for ones self and partner, ways in which attempts were made to regulate or restrain their partners drinking, relationship outcomes (i.e., satisfaction, commitment, trust, and need fulfillment), and alcohol use and consequences for self and partner. Factor analyses supported a single factor for Thinking about your Partners Drinking (TPD) and two factors for the Partner Management Strategies (PMS) scale (i.e., punishment and reward). Results using structural equation modeling indicated that perceiving ones partner to have a drinking problem was associated with lower relationship functioning. Further, this association was mediated by strategies using punishment aimed at changing ones partners drinking, but was not mediated by strategies using rewards. Finally, moderation results suggested that this relationship was not as detrimental for participants who perceived they also had an alcohol problem. In sum, perceiving ones partner to have a drinking problem was associated with relationship problems through punishing regulation strategies, and was weaker among individuals who also perceived themselves to have a drinking problem.

A multisite randomized trial of normative feedback for heavy drinking: Social comparison versus social comparison plus correction of normative misperceptions.

OBJECTIVE Given widespread alcohol misuse among college students, numerous intervention programs have been developed, including personalized normative feedback (PNF). Most research evaluating PNF assumes that presenting ones own perceived norms is necessary to correct normative misperceptions and thereby reduce drinking. Alternatively, simply providing social comparison information showing that one drinks more than others may be sufficient. The present study evaluated the efficacy of full PNF (ones own drinking, campus drinking rates, and perceived norms) and a partial personalized social comparison feedback (PSCF; ones own drinking and campus drinking rates) in a randomized trial among heavy-drinking college students. METHOD Participants included 623 heavy-drinking students from 3 universities. Assessments occurred at baseline and 3- and 6-months postbaseline. RESULTS Primary analyses examined differences across 4 drinking outcomes (drinks per week, total drinks past month, frequency of past month drinking, and negative alcohol-related consequences) at 3- and 6-month follow-ups controlling for the baseline variable. Results revealed significant reductions across all alcohol consumption outcomes at 3 months in both intervention conditions compared to attention-control. Mediation analyses demonstrated significant indirect effects of the intervention on 6-month drinking through changes in perceived norms at 3 months. Moreover, evidence emerged for changes in drinking at 3 months as a mediator of the association between PSCF and 6-month perceived norms. CONCLUSIONS The present research suggests PNF may not require explicit consideration of ones perceived norms to be effective and that direct social comparison provides an alternative theoretical mechanism for PNF efficacy.

The price of distrust: trust, anxious attachment, jealousy, and partner abuse

Trust is essential to the development of healthy, secure, and satisfying relationships (Simpson, 2007a). Attachment styles provide a theoretical framework for understanding how individuals respond to partner behaviors that either confirm or violate trust (Hazan & Shaver, 1994). The current research aimed to identify how trust and attachment anxiety might interact to predict different types of jealousy and physical and psychological abuse. We expected that when experiencing lower levels of trust, anxiously attached individuals would report higher levels of both cognitive and behavioral jealousy as well as partner abuse perpetration. Participants in committed romantic relationships (N = 261) completed measures of trust, attachment anxiety and avoidance, jealousy, and physical and psychological partner abuse in a cross-sectional study. Moderation results largely supported the hypotheses: Attachment anxiety moderated the association between trust and jealousy, such that anxious individuals experienced much higher levels of cognitive and behavioral jealousy when reporting lower levels of trust. Moreover, attachment anxiety moderated the association between trust and nonphysical violence. These results suggest that upon experiencing distrust in one’s partner, anxiously attached individuals are more likely to become jealous, snoop through a partner’s belongings, and become psychologically abusive. The present research illustrates that particularly for anxiously attached individuals, distrust has cascading effects on relationship cognitions and behavior, and this should be a key area of discussion during therapy.

Drowning the pain: Intimate partner violence and drinking to cope prospectively predict problem drinking☆

INTRODUCTION The present study examined the longitudinal association among drinking problems, drinking to cope, and degree of intimate partner violence (IPV). Two competing models were tested; the first model posited that drinking to cope leads to greater drinking problems and this subsequently leads to more violence in the relationship (an intoxication-violence model). The second model speculated that violence in the relationship leads to drinking to cope, which in turn leads to greater drinking problems (a self-medication model). METHODS Eight hundred and eighteen undergraduate students at a large north-western university participated in the study over a two year period, completing assessments of IPV, alcohol related problems and drinking to cope at five time points over a two year period as part of a larger social norms intervention study. RESULTS Analyses examined two competing models; analyses indicated that there was support for the self-mediation model, whereby people who have experienced violence have more drinking problems later, and this association is temporally mediated by drinking to cope. DISCUSSION The current results are discussed in light of past research on the self-medication model.

Self-affirmation theory and cigarette smoking warning images

INTRODUCTION The present study examined self-affirmation theory, cigarette smoking, and health-related images depicting adverse effects of smoking. Previous research examining self-affirmation and negative health-related images has shown that individuals who engage in a self-affirmation activity are more receptive to messages when compared to those who do not affirm. We were interested in examining the extent to which self-affirmation would reduce defensive responding to negative health images related to cigarette smoking. METHODS Participants included 203 daily smokers who were undergraduate students at a large southern university. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires and were then randomly assigned to one of four conditions (non-smoking image control, smoking image control, low affirmation, and high affirmation). Analyses evaluated the effectiveness of affirmation condition as it related to defensive responding. RESULTS Results indicated that both affirmation conditions were effective in reducing defensive responding for those at greatest risk (heavier smokers) and those more resistant to health benefits associated with quitting. CONCLUSIONS Findings are discussed in terms of potential public health implications as well as the role defensive responding plays in the evaluation and processing of negative health messages.

Explicit drinking identity and alcohol problems: The mediating role of drinking to cope

Drinking identity, or the tendency to view ones self as a drinker, is a unique predictor of alcohol use and related consequences among young adults; yet the mechanism by which it leads to alcohol problems is poorly understood. Based on self-presentation and self-verification perspectives, we examined drinking to cope as a mediator of the association between explicit drinking identity and alcohol-related problems among two samples of young adults. Study data come from two large, longitudinal studies. Participants from Sample 1 and Sample 2 included undergraduates (55% and 59% female, respectively) who reported drinking in the previous three months. Tests of the indirect effects indicated that 3-month drinking to cope significantly mediated the positive association between baseline drinking identity and 6-month alcohol-related problems in both samples. In contrast, 3-month drinking identity did not mediate the association between baseline drinking to cope and 6-month alcohol-related problems. Findings indicate that individuals with a stronger drinking identity are more likely to use alcohol to cope and, subsequently, experience more problems. Thus, drinking identity may be an important intervention target for college students as it appears to temporally proceed drinking to cope in the prediction of alcohol-related problems.

Sexual orientation, minority stress, social norms, and substance use among racially diverse adolescents

BACKGROUND Sexual minority adolescents are more likely than their heterosexual peers to use substances. This study tested factors that contribute to sexual orientation disparities in substance use among racially and ethnically diverse adolescents. Specifically, we examined how both minority stress (i.e., homophobic bullying) and social norms (i.e., descriptive and injunctive norms) may account for sexual orientation disparities in recent and lifetime use of four substances: tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drugs. PROCEDURES A probability sample of middle and high school students (N=3012; aged 11-18 years old; 71.2% racial and ethnic minorities) using random cluster methods was obtained in a mid-size school district in the Southeastern United States. RESULTS Sexual minority adolescents were more likely than heterosexual adolescents to use substances, experience homophobic bullying, and report higher descriptive norms for close friends and more permissive injunctive norms for friends and parents. While accounting for sociodemographic characteristics, multiple mediation models concurrently testing all mediators indicated that higher descriptive and more permissive injunctive norms were significant mediators of the associations between sexual orientation and recent and lifetime use of the four substances, whereas homophobic bullying was not a significant mediator of the associations between sexual orientation and recent and lifetime use of any of the substances. CONCLUSIONS Descriptive and injunctive norms, in conjunction with minority stress, are important to consider in explaining sexual orientation disparities in substance use among racially diverse adolescents. These results have implications for substance use interventions among sexual minority adolescents.

A Longitudinal Examination of the Associations Between Shyness, Drinking Motives, Alcohol Use, and Alcohol-Related Problems

BACKGROUND The current study evaluated the roles of drinking motives and shyness in predicting problem alcohol use over 2 years. METHODS First-year college student drinkers (n = 818) completed assessments of alcohol use and related problems, shyness, and drinking motives every 6 months over a 2-year period. RESULTS Generalized linear mixed models indicated that shyness was associated with less drinking, but more alcohol-related problems. Further, shyness was associated with coping, conformity, and enhancement drinking motives, but was not associated with social drinking motives. However, when examining coping motives, moderation analyses revealed that social drinking motives were more strongly associated with coping motives among individuals higher in shyness. In addition, coping, conformity, and enhancement motives, but not social motives, mediated associations between shyness and alcohol-related problems over time. Finally, coping motives mediated the association between the interaction of shyness and social motives and alcohol-related problems. CONCLUSIONS Together, the results suggest that shy individuals may drink to reduce negative affect, increase positive affect, and fit in with others in social situations, which may then contribute to greater risk for subsequent alcohol-related problems.

The green eyed monster in the bottle: Relationship contingent self-esteem, romantic jealousy, and alcohol-related problems

Previous research suggests that both jealousy and relationship contingent self-esteem (RCSE) are related to alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. No work, however, has examined these two constructs together as they relate to motives for alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. The current study aims to build upon emerging literature examining different types of jealousy (i.e., emotional, cognitive, and behavioral), relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, commitment, closeness), RCSE, and alcohol use. More specifically, the current study aimed to examine the associations between RCSE and drinking to cope and RCSE and alcohol-related problems, in the context of the different types of jealousy. Moreover, the current study aimed to assess whether the associations between RCSE, jealousy, and drinking outcomes vary as a function of relationship quality. Two hundred and seventy seven individuals (87% female) at a large southern university participated in the study. They completed measures of RCSE, relationship satisfaction, commitment, closeness, and jealousy as well as alcohol-related outcomes. Using PROCESS, moderated mediational analyses were used to evaluate different types of jealousy as mediators of the association between RCSE and drinking to cope/alcohol-related problems. Further, we aimed to examine whether relationship quality moderated the association between RCSE and jealousy in predicting alcohol-related variables. Results indicated that cognitive jealousy mediated the association between both RCSE and drinking to cope and RCSE and alcohol-related problems. Further, relationship satisfaction, commitment, and closeness were all found to moderate the association between RSCE and cognitive jealousy such that at lower, but not higher levels of satisfaction, commitment, and closeness, cognitive jealousy mediated the association between RCSE and drinking to cope and RCSE and alcohol-related problems.