Psyschology Study On Drinking Essay Paper Example For Students

Psyschology Study On Drinking Essay Paper AbstractIn response to the need for research that incorporates multiple aspects of theory into a testable framework, this study attempted to replicate and extend the results of Cooper, Russell, Skinner, Frone, and Mudar (1992). A modified stressor vulnerability model of stress-related drinking was tested in a homogeneous sample of 65 male and female undergraduate student drinkers. Total weekly consumption ofalcohol was used as the criterion measure, whereas family history of alcoholism (Adapted SMAST: Sher Descutner, 1986), alcohol outcome expectancies/valences (CEOA: Fromme, Stroot, Kaplan, 1993), perceived stress (PSS: Cohen, Kamarck, Mermelstein, 1983), and coping dispositions (COPE: Carver, Scheier, Weintraub, 1989) were used as the predictor variables. The proposed modified model postulates that expectancies play a proximal mediating role in stress-related drinking, whereas gender, family history of alcoholism, and coping all play a distal moderating role. Hierarchical multi ple regression procedures were then performed to evaluate the model. The results failed to support the hypothesized model. Specifically, expectancies emerged as a distal rather than proximal predictor of stress-related drinking, and family history of alcoholism did not moderate stress-related drinking. In contrast, gender and coping styles emerged as the most powerful predictors in the model. Despite the shortcomings of the proposed model, the present results offer an alternative interpretation as to what constitutes the stressor vulnerability model of stress-related drinking.IntroductionStress as a Causal Factor in Drinking One of the common stereotypes about the effects of alcohol involves the drug’s capacity to act as astress antagonist. Conger (1956) has proposed a theory, known as the tension reduction hypothesis (TRH) of drinking, to support this notion. Essentially the theory holds that alcohol’s sedative action on the central nervous system serves to reduce ten sion, and because tension reduction is reinforcing, people drinkto escape it (Marlatt Rohsenow, 1980). Strong evidence to support the validity of the theory comesfrom epidemiological findings which indicate that the prevalence of anxiety disorders in alcoholics rangesfrom 16 to 37%, compared to a rate of only 4-5% in the general population (Welte, 1985). Notwithstanding, there seems to be a subset of people for whom the predictions of the TRH do nothold. For instance, in a study conducted by Conway, Vickers, Ward, and Rahe (1981) it was found that theconsumption of alcohol among Navy officers during periods of high job demands was actually lower than theconsumption during low-demand periods. In addition, other studies (i.e., Mayfield, 1968; Mendlson, Ladou, Soloman, 1964) have shown that some drinkers actually consider alcohol as a tension generator ratherthan a tension reducer. Overall, when taking into account these conflicting findings, it seems prudent to find some middleground. The solution to this problem than is a modified version of the TRH, specifying the conditions underwhich stress will lead to an increase in drinking. Moderating and Mediating Factors in Stress Induced DrinkingIn addition to stress, several other variables have been shown to be crucial in determining an individual’sdrinking behavior. These variables include gender of drinker (gender), coping behavior of drinker (coping),and alcohol outcome expectancies of drinker (expectancies). In the following discussion, the importance ofeach of these variables to drinking will be considered first, followed by an evaluation of these as potentialmoderators or mediators of stress in drinking. 1Differential Gender Drinking BehaviorIt has been repeatedly demonstrated that significant differences exist between the drinking patterns ofmen and women (Hilton, 1988). In a comprehensive survey of US drinking habits conducted by the USNational Center for Health Statistics in 1988, significant gender differences were found in three areas aspointed out by Dawson and Archer (1992). The first significant difference pertained to the number of maleand fem ale current drinkers. Roughly 64% of all men were current drinkers in comparison to 41% of allwomen. The second and third significant differences concerned the quantity of alcohol consumed. Menwere more likely to (a) consume alcohol on a daily basis and (b) be classified as heavy drinkers. Men’s dailyaverage of ethanol intake (17.5 grams per day) was almost twice as high as women’s (8.9 grams per day). Even when an adjustment for body weight was made (females require less ethanol than males to achieve asimilar increase in blood alcohol level), men’s consumption was still 53% greater than women’s. Withregards to drinking classification, males were classified substantially more often than females as heavydrinkers (i.e. the number of males who drank five or more drinks a day was 88% greater than thecorresponding number of females). Furthermore, as the classification measures became stricter so did thedisparity between male and female heavy drinkers increase (i.e., the ratio of male to female heavy drinkersincreased by a factor of 3 as the definition of heavy drinker was changed from five drinks or more a day tonine drinks or more a day). Gender as a Moderating Factor of StressTo understand why men and women drink differently requires an understanding of the prevailingsocialization practices (Dohrenwend Dohrenwend, 1976; Horwitz White, 1987). According to thissociological view, â€Å"women have been socialized to internalize distress, whereas men have been socialized toexternalize distress† (Cooper, Russell, Skinner, Frone, Mudar, 1992; P. 140). Therefore, women tend tocope with stress by utilizing personal (internal) devices such as emotion, rather than impersonal (external)devices such as alcohol, which are used more often by men. In addition, men and women also holddifferential expectations about the effects of drinking. Several studies (i.e. Abrams Wilson, 1979; Sutker,Allain, Brantly, Randall, 1982; Wilson Abrams, 1977) have shown that â€Å"although pharmacologicaleffects appear to be similarly stress reducing for both sexes, the belief that alcohol has been consumed mayactually increase distress a mong women† (Cooper et al. , 1992; P. 140). Therefore, it seems plausible thatfemales actually expect to experience some form of distress from drinking as opposed to males’ expectationto experience tension reduction from drinking (Rohsenow, 1983). Differential Coping Styles in DrinkingConsiderable evidence has been accumulated in support of the notion that certain methods of coping aremore likely to be associated with problem drinking than others (Moos, Finney, Chan, 1981). This hasled to the development of social learning theory which postulates that abusive drinkers differ from relativelyhealthy drinkers in (a) their capacity to effectively cope with stressors and (b) in their beliefs about drinking(Abrams Niaura, 1987). In general, two types of coping responses have been shown to predominate in most situations (Folkman Lazarus, 1980). The first type, problem-focused coping (also known as approach coping), is directed ateither solving the presenting problem or altering the source of the stress (Carver, Scheier, Weintraub1989). The second type, emotion-focused coping (also known as avoidance coping ), attempts to reduce theunpleasant emotional feelings which accompany the stressor (Carver et al. , 1989). Even though peopleusually use both methods in response to a given stressor, the former type will tend to predominate whenpeople feel that the situation is changeable, whereas the latter type will tend to predominate when peopleappraise the situation as unchangeable (Folkman Lazarus, 1980). People who predominantly resort to avoidance coping have been shown to display pathological drinkingbehavior much more than those who utilize approach coping (Cooper, Russell, George, 1988; Cooper etal. , 1992). Those who typically resort to avoidance coping (a group which consists of up to 25% of alldrinkers), report that they do so in order to regulate negative emotions (Cahalan, Cisin, Crossley, 1969;Mullford Miller, 1963; Polich Orvis, 1979). The strongest evidence to support this contentioncomes from studies which have investigated post-treatment relapse in alcoholics. In three such studies(Marlatt, Gordon, 1979; Moos et al. , 1981; Moos, Finney, Gamble, 1982), it was found thatindividuals were more likely to relapse in situations which elicited unpleasant emotional states. Coping as a Moderating Factor of StressThe key to understanding the differential impact of avoidance and approach coping on drinking lies inthe availability of an effective coping response to a given stressor (Cooper et al. , 1992). By definition,people who utilize approach coping mechanisms to deal with their stress, engage in concrete problemsolving which serves to actively reduce the amount of stress. By contrast, people who rely on avoidancecoping may manage to reduce their distress, but they tend to do so by distracting themselves from the stress. Yanomamo: People of the Rainforest EssayWeekly Alcohol Consumption. Subjects were given a chart which contained the days of the week. Foreach day they were instructed to indicate the number of standard alcoholic drinks and the amount of time itwould take to consume these drinks in a typical week. A standard alcohol drink was defined as either aregular size can/bottle of beer, 1.5 ounce shot of liquor, or a 5 ounce glass of wine. Subjects who drank lessthan once a month were instructed to skip this section. The total number of drinks in one week was summedand used as the dependent variable. Adapted Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (Adapted SMAST). The adapted SMAST (Sher Descutner, 1986) is a 13 item self-report questionnaire designed to measure family history of alcoholism. Specifically, the questionnaire assesses the extent of an individual’s mother’s and father’s alcohol abuse. Assessment is based on a two point scale consisting of 0=no and 1=yes. For the purpose of the presentstudy only 10 items were used, and the mother/father answer categories were extended to biological mother/father and step or adoptive mother/father. Comprehensive Effects of Alcohol (CEOA). The CEOA (Fromme, Stroot, Kaplan, 1993) is a 38 itemself-report questionnaire designed to assess alcohol outcome expectancies and their subjective valence. It iscomposed of seven expectancy scales, four positive (sociability, tension-reduction, liquid-courage, andsexuality) and three negative (cognitive-behavioral impairment, risk and aggression, and self perception). Expectancy assessment is based on a four point scale from 1=disagree to 4=agree. The valence of theseexpectancies is assessed on a five point scale from 1=bad to 5=good. Both items and instructions werecarefully worded to ensure that the elicited expectancies were neither dose-specific, nor situation specific. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). The PSS (Cohen, Kamarck, Mermelstein, 1983) is a 14 item self-reportquestionnaire designed to assess the degree to which situations in one’s life are appraised as stressful. Anequal number of 7 positive and 7 negative statements make up the questionnaire. Assessment is based on afive point scale from 0=never to 4=very often. Scores are obtained by reversing the scores on the sevenpositive items (i.e., 0=4, 1=3, 2=2, etc.), and then summing across all 14 items. COPE. The COPE (Carver et al., 1989) is a 53 item self-report questionnaire designed to assessindividual coping dispositions. The questionnaire is comprised of 14 scales which are categorized into threecoping styles: Problem-Focused Coping (Active coping, Planning, Suppression of competing activities,Seeking social support for instrumental reasons, and Restraint coping), Emotion-Focused Coping(Acceptance, Seeking social support for emotional reasons, Positive reinterpretation, Turning to religion,and Focus on and venting of emotion), and Less than Useful Coping (Denial, Behavioral Disengagement,and Mental Disengagement). For the purpose of the present study the Alcohol-drug disengagement scalewas excluded from these categories, and was treated as a separate category called Drinking to Cope. Assessment is based on a four point scale from1=I usually don’t do this at all to 4=I usually do this a lot. Both items and instructions were worded such that dispositional , rather than situational, styles of copingwere assessed. ProcedureAll participants were recruited from undergraduate psychology courses at York University. Thequestionnaire was administered in a classroom setting. Participants completed the questionnaire in agroup format of mixed sex ranging in size from 10 to 30 individuals. Informed consent was obtainedfrom all participants, and a phone number was provided in case any concerns arose. The completequestionnaire required approximately 40 minutes to administer. Respondents were compensated for theirtime by being entered in a lottery with a 1 in 50 chance of winning $ 50.00.ResultsCorrelational AnalysesTable 1 presents zero-order correlations, computed for all relevant study variables. Conceptuallyvariables may be grouped into one of five categories: weekly drinking (variable 1), perceived stress(variable 2), family history of alcoholism (variable 3), coping variables (Variables 4-7), and expectancyvariables (variables 8-21). Examining the pattern of correlations between these variables sugge sts severalconclusions. First, family history of alcoholism was neither significantly correlated with perceived stress nor withweekly drinking, suggesting that family history of alcoholism is not important in stress-induced drinking. Second, several coping variables were significantly correlated with either weekly drinking and/orperceived stress. Specifically, drinking to cope was significantly positively correlated with both weeklydrinking (r = .420) and perceived stress (r = .310), less useful coping was significantly positively correlated(r = .674) with stress, and problem focused coping was significantly negatively correlated (r = -.327) withweekly drinking. These findings suggest that coping variables play an important role in stress-relateddrinking. Finally, only one expectancy variable, the valence expectancy for cognitive and behavioral impairment,was significantly correlated (r = .340) with weekly drinking, but not with perceived stress. However, severalexpectancy variables were significantly positively correlated (.357 r .517) with drinking to cope. Thesefindings suggest that expectancies are more likely be a distal, rather than a proximal predictor of stress-related drinking. Estimating the ModelHierarchical multiple regression analyses were employed to test the model depicted in Figure 1. Table 2contains summary statistics for the stepwise regression used to identify the predictor variables of weeklydrinking. As can be seen from Table 2, gender emerged as the most important predictor variable accountingfor over 28% of the variance. The coping variables of drinking to cope and problem-focused drinking werealso significant, and accounted for an additional 12% and 8% of the variance, respectively. Further multipleregression analyses were used to determine which variables predicted drinking to cope, and problem-focusedcoping, respectively. Table 3 shows that the expectancy for risk accounted for over 26% of the variance inpredicting drinking to cope, with the expectancy for tension and perceived stress accounting for anadditional 16%. Table 4 shows that emotion-focused coping accounted for over 34% of the variance inpredicting problem-focused drinking, with the expectancy valence for self perception accounting for anadditional 8%. Figure 2 summarizes the direct effects estimated in the foregoing series of multipleregression analyses. Table 1.Zero-Order Correlations Among Relevant Study Variables______________________________________________________________________________________Measure 1234567891. Weekly Drinking—-.143-.072-.327* -.232 -.206 .420**.016.2402. Perceived Stress— .001.198.138.674** .310* -.069 -.0743. Family History of Alcoholism —-.186-.111 -.002-.211-.003 -.1284. Problem-Focused Coping—.491** .170-.044-.132 -.1125. Emotion-Focused Coping —.166.062.111.1076. Less Useful Coping—.223-.073-.0177. Drinking to Cope—.234 .412**Alcohol Expectancy Outcomes8. Sociability—.2629. Tension Reduction –10. Liquid Courage11. Sexuality12. Cognitive Behavioral Impairment13. Risk Aggression14. Self PerceptionAlcohol Expectancy Valence15. Sociability16. Tension Reduction17. Liquid Courage18. Sexuality19. Cognitive Behavioral Impairment20. Risk Aggression21. Self Perception* p .01; ** p .001Table 1. (Continued) Zero-Order Correlations Among Relevant S tudy Variables______________________________________________________________________________________ Measure10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 181. Weekly Drinking.116-.008-.141.173-.037 -.083.185-.062.1942. Perceived Stress-.041-.069.133.213.039.044.196 .058 -.0383. Family History of Alcoholism -.052.018-.082-.121.069.040.089 .028.0074. Problem-Focused Coping.035.012.175.141.218 -.097-.075.052 -.0355. Emotion-Focused Coping.044.295*.218.154.151 -.230 -.084-.053 -.0556. Less Useful Coping-.178-.006.238.066.059.016.096-.025.0727. Drinking to Cope.371* .225-.017 .517** -.009 .066.357*.115.178Alcohol Expectancy Outcomes8. Sociability .697** .488** -.120 .433** -.160 .569** .469** .174.2899. Tension Reduction .233.263 .041.180.006 .202.282.132.22210. Liquid Courage —.509**.032 .622** .046 .433** .436** .381* .24511. Sexuality—.260 .522** .276 .118.161-.025.14912. Cognitive Behavioral Impairment —.221.354* -.227 -.241-.171 -.06113. Risk Aggression— .236 .158.304*.106 - .00114. Self Perception—-.335* -.175-.089 -.247Alcohol Expectancy Valence15. Sociability— .510** .499**.490**16. Tension Reduction —.412**.409**17. Liquid Courage — .541**18. Sexuality—19. Cognitive Behavioral Impairment20. Risk Aggression21. Self Perception* p .01; ** p .001Table 1. (Continued) Zero-Order Correlations Among Relevant Study Variables______________________________________________________________________________________Measure 1920211. Weekly Drinking .340* .026.1972. Perceived Stress-.164.065 -.1393. Family History of Alcoholism -.229.045.0094. Problem-Focused Coping -.289 -.053 -.357*5. Emotion-focused Coping -.122 -.123 -.1356. Less Useful Coping-.262 -.054 -.3227. Drinking to Cope .119.166-.054Alcohol Expectancy Outcomes8. Sociability .141.170.1359. Tension Reduction.196.166.01510. Liquid Courage.123.278.13811. Sexuality -.271 -.152 -.16012. Cognitive Behavioral Impairment -.396**-.217-.09713. Risk Aggression-.038 -.019-.138 14. Self Perception-.363*-.274-.220Alcohol Expectancy Valence15. Sociability .249 .482** .11316. Tension Reduction.150 .227-.13117. Liquid Courage.375*.717** .21918. Sexuality.162 .515** .18119. Cognitive Behavioral Impairment—.544**.539**20. Risk Aggression—.517**21. Self Perception –* p .01; ** p