Sex differences in the effects of disinhibition,perceived peer drinking,and delay discounting on drinking among Japanese college students

Disinhibition, perceived peer drinking, and delay discounting are considered significant predictors of drinking in young adults. This study examined whether perceived peer drinking and delay discounting mediate the association between disinhibition and drinking for young men and women. In this study, 258 Japanese college students (109 men and 149 women, mean age 19.17 (SD = 1.20) years old) completed a self-administered questionnaire that included four measures—the disinhibition subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scale for Japanese Adolescents, the proportion of friends who drink as an index of perceived peer drinking behaviors, the Monetary Choice Questionnaire, and participants’ own drinking behavior. In the multiple mediator models analyzed using structural equation modeling, for both sexes, perceived peer drinking had the largest direct effect on participants’ drinking, followed by disinhibition and delay discounting. However, the results of mediation analyses indicated that perceived peer drinking mediated the association between disinhibition and drinking for only women. The results of this study imply that it is important to consider sex differences in the association between personality traits and peer influence to develop programs aiming to reduce drinking among young adults in Japan.     

Coping mediates relationships between reinforcement sensitivity and symptoms of psychopathology

Limited research has evaluated whether coping strategies mediate the relationships between reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) and symptoms of psychopathology. Undergraduates (n = 293) completed questionnaires assessing RST, coping, and symptoms of psychopathology. Consistent with our hypotheses, bootstrapping analyses indicated that emotion- and avoidance-focused coping mediated the relationship between high Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and depression, anxiety, and worry. Less problem-focused coping mediated the relationship between low Behavioral Approach System (BAS) and depression. Avoidance-focused coping mediated the effects of high BIS on drug and alcohol use whereas high BAS directly predicted alcohol and drug use. Unexpectedly, emotion-focused coping mediated the relationship between BAS and anxiety and worry. These results provide support for the hypothesis that personality variables are associated with psychopathology partially through coping.     

Longitudinal predictors of changes in the morningness–eveningness personality among Norwegian nurses

The aim of this cohort study was to investigate factors that might cause a shift in morningness–eveningness personality. A large sample of Norwegian nurses (n = 1144) participated in a longitudinal survey study about life- and work factors, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and habits such as smoking, caffeine- and alcohol consumption. A hierarchical regression analysis was employed to determine if these variables had predictive value concerning changes in morningness assessed with the Diurnal Type Scale (DTS) over a 24-month interval. The results showed that percentage of full time equivalent, having children (or having children move in), and female gender all predicted higher scores on the morningness scale over time. Also, factors such as number of night shifts during the past two years, whether the subject had started smoking and higher alcohol consumption by the subject all predicted lower scores on the morningness scale over time.     

Neuropsychological impairments on the NEPSY-II among children with FASD

Background: We examined the pattern of neuropsychological impairments of children with FASD (compared to controls) on NEPSY-II measures of attention and executive functioning, language, memory, visuospatial processing, and social perception.

Methods: Participants included 32 children with FASD and 30 typically developing control children, ranging in age from 6 to 16 years. Children were tested on the following subtests of the NEPSY-II: Attention and Executive Functioning (animal sorting, auditory attention/response set, and inhibition), Language (comprehension of instructions and speeded naming), Memory (memory for names/delayed memory for names), Visual-Spatial Processing (arrows), and Social Perception (theory of mind). Groups were compared using MANOVA.

Results: Children with FASD were impaired relative to controls on the following subtests: animal sorting, response set, inhibition (naming and switching conditions), comprehension of instructions, speeded naming, and memory for names total and delayed, but group differences were not significant on auditory attention, inhibition (inhibition condition), arrows, and theory of mind. Among the FASD group, IQ scores were not correlated with performance on the NEPSY-II subtests, and there were no significant differences between those with and without comorbid ADHD.

Conclusions: The NEPSY-II is an effective and useful tool for measuring a variety of neuropsychological impairments among children with FASD. Children with FASD displayed a pattern of results with impairments (relative to controls) on measures of executive functioning (set shifting, concept formation, and inhibition), language, and memory, and relative strengths on measures of basic attention, visual spatial processing, and social perception.     

Bottled memories: On how alcohol affects eyewitness recall

This study investigated how different doses of alcohol affected eyewitness recall. Participants (N = 126) were randomly assigned to three groups with different blood alcohol concentration (BAC), either a control group (mean BAC 0.00%, N = 42), a lower alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.04%, N = 40), or a higher alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.06%, N = 44). After consumption, participants witnessed a movie of a mock crime and were interviewed one week later. The main results showed that witnesses with the higher intoxication level recalled fewer details compared to witnesses with the lower intoxication level. The amount of alcohol consumed did not have an impact on the accuracy rate. No sex differences were found. The results are discussed in the light of past research. We conclude that more studies are needed before recommendations can be made to an applied setting.     

A comparison of two report formats for alcohol and caffeine use

Abstract

The present study compared two different methods of assessing alcohol and caffeine use in a community sample of adults over a one-year period. Daily reporting of beer/wine intake was more stable over time and showed higher correspondence with Quantity-frequency measures than daily reporting of hard liquor use. Coffee and tea use showed high temporal stability and good alternate form reliability, though a tendency to underreport typical use of coffee use was observed. The psychometric properties of substance use measures appear to vary with type of beverage consumed and report format.     

Sleep disturbance and emotion dysregulation as transdiagnostic processes in a comorbid sample

Sleep disturbance and emotion dysregulation have been identified as etiologic and maintaining factors for a range of psychopathology and separate literatures support their relationships to anxiety, depression, PTSD, and alcohol dependence (AD) symptom severity. Previous studies have examined these relationships in isolation, failing to account for the high rates of comorbidity among disorders. It is not yet known whether these processes uniquely predict symptom severity in each of these domains. Participants were 220 patients in residential substance abuse treatment, who had experienced a potentially traumatic event and exceeded screening cutoffs for probable PTSD and problematic alcohol use. Controlling for emotion dysregulation and the interrelationships among the outcome variables, insomnia was uniquely associated with anxiety (B = .27, p < .001), depression (B = .25, p < .001), PTSD (B = .22, p < .001), and AD (B = .17, p = .01) symptom severity. Similarly, controlling for insomnia, emotion dysregulation was uniquely associated with anxiety (B = .40, p < .001), depression (B = .47, p < .001), PTSD (B = .38, p < .001), and AD (B = .26, p < .001) symptom severity. Insomnia and emotion dysregulation appear to be transdiagnostic processes uniquely associated with symptom severity across a number of different domains and might be important treatment targets for individuals with PTSD and AD.     

Somatic Complaints in Girls: A Longitudinal Perspective

This report presents results from a study of the dimensionality and longitudinal stability of some common self-reported somatic complaints in teenage girls. Data were supplied by the Swedish longitudinal research program “Individual Development and Adaptation”. At four age levels (age 10, 13, 15, and 16 years) a representative sample of approximately 500 girls filled out questionnaires on various adjustment problems, including some typical somatic complaints. A separate dimension of somatic complaints was identified at each age level through factor analysis of the questionnaire data. Correlational stability of somatic complaints was not high until middle adolescence. At this age fairly stable patterns of somatic complaints were also found at the individual level; different somatic complaints were not found to be interchangeable. The results support the interpretation of girls' somatic complaints as a single, meaningful dimension in late childhood and adolescence. This dimension may be hypothesized to constitute a psychological process, somatization, manifesting itself in fairly stable patterns at the individual level in middle adolescence.     

Affective Priming of Alcohol Schema in Coping and Enhancement Motivated Drinkers

This study investigated whether Coping Motivated and Enhancement Motivated drinkers differ in their degree of semantic activation of alcohol concepts on a primed Stroop colour-naming task following exposure to negative and positive affect primes, respectively. Participants were 48 undergraduates (not necessarily problem drinkers) who had elevated scores on the Coping Motivated or Enhancement Motivated subscale of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire - Revised. The Stroop task involved negative, positive and neutral primes that preceded alcohol and no-alcohol target words. As hypothesized, Coping Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to negative but not neutral primes. Also as hypothesized, Enhancement Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to positive but not negative primes. Unexpectedly, semantic activation of alcohol concepts was also observed among Coping Motivated drinkers following positive primes and among Enhancement Motivated drinkers following neutral primes. Theoretical implications are discussed, as are implications for improving cognitive behavioral interventions for problem drinkers.