Cognitive motivations for drinking among alcoholics: factor structure and correlates

Time flies when chatting online: a social structure and social learning model to understand excessive use of mobile instant messaging

Purpose

Widespread concerns about excessive use of mobile instant messaging (MIM) have inspired research in different disciplines. However, the focus thus far tends to be on diagnostics and cognitive predictors. There is little understanding from the socio-technical perspective to capture the drivers of excessive use of MIM. To address this research gap, the authors aim to enrich existing literature by adopting a social structure and social learning model (SSSLM) to understand the excessive use of MIM. The authors argue that excessive MIM use is developed and reinforced in highly interactive online communication, through a social learning process.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conduct a cross-sectional online survey to validate our proposed research model on excessive use of mobile instant messaging (MIM). 368 valid responses are obtained from active MIM users in China.

Findings

The results suggest that highly interactive MIM creates a technology-based social structure that facilitates the social learning process of excessive technology use. The influence of perceived interactivity of MIM on excessive MIM use is mediated by a series of contextualized social learning factors. Furthermore, the influences of perceived interactivity on social learning factors are moderated by MIM use experience.

Originality/value

The authors contribute to literature in related fields by highlighting the crucial role of social learning in facilitating excessive technology use. The authors contribute to the social structure and social learning model by contextualizing it into the context of excessive MIM use. Design guidelines are provided with a purpose to inhibit excessive use of MIM.

Trajectories of Alcohol Initiation and Use During Adolescence: The Role of Stress and Amygdala Reactivity

OBJECTIVE

Early alcohol use initiation predicts onset of alcohol use disorders in adulthood. However, little is known about developmental trajectories of alcohol use initiation and their putative biological and environmental correlates.

METHOD

Adolescents (N = 330) with high or low familial loading for depression were assessed annually for up to 6 years. Data were collected assessing affective symptoms, alcohol use, and stress at each assessment. Adolescents also participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol that included measurement of threat-related amygdala and reward-related ventral striatum activity.

RESULTS

Latent class analyses identified 2 trajectories of alcohol use initiation. Early initiators (n = 32) reported greater baseline alcohol use and rate of change of use compared with late initiators and/or current abstainers (n = 298). Early initiators reported higher baseline levels of stressful life events (p = .001) and exhibited higher amygdala (p = .001) but not ventral striatum activity compared with late initiators. Early initiators were 15.3 times more likely to have a full drink (p < .0001), 9.1 times more likely to experience intoxication (p < .0001), and 6.7 times more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder by 19 years of age compared with late initiators (p = .003).

CONCLUSION

Adolescents on a trajectory of early alcohol use initiation have higher levels of stress, have increased threat-related amygdala activity, are more likely to consume a full standard alcoholic drink, are more likely to experience early intoxication, and are at a heightened risk for the onset of an alcohol use disorder.

An internalizing pathway to alcohol use and disorder

Research emanating from the field of developmental science indicates that initial risk factors for alcohol use and disorder can be evident in early childhood. One dominant developmental pathway connecting these initial risk factors with subsequent alcohol involvement focuses on the central role of disinhibited or externalizing behaviors. In the current paper, we delineate a second pathway that focuses on internalizing symptomatology. Several studies indicate that internalizing symptoms in early and middle childhood predict alcohol involvement in adolescence and young adulthood. We use a developmental psychopathology framework to describe a risk model that traces the potential developmental markers of this internalizing pathway and to consider the relation between the internalizing pathway and the more widely researched externalizing pathway. We outline the markers of risk in this pathway and conclude with a discussion of the implications of this model for prevention efforts and future research. In this manner, we strive for a translational goal, linking our existing understanding of internalizing processes and alcohol use and disorder with our efforts to develop effective prevention programs.

Alcohol-attentional bias and motivational structure as independent predictors of social drinkers' alcohol consumption

Prior studies aimed at explaining cognitive-motivational reasons for drinking have focused on either cognitive or motivational factors, but not on both. This study examined the ability of both alcohol-attentional bias and motivational structure to predict alcohol consumption. Participants were university students (N=87) who completed a battery of tests, including the Personal Concerns Inventory (a measure of adaptive and maladaptive motivation), an alcohol Stroop test (a measure of alcohol-attentional bias), and an alcohol-use inventory. Regression, moderation, and mediation analyses showed that (a) maladaptive motivation and alcohol-attentional bias were positive predictors of alcohol consumption after participants' age, gender, and executive cognitive functioning had been controlled, and (b) maladaptive motivation and alcohol-attentional bias independently predicted alcohol consumption. The implications of the results for both theory and practice are discussed.

A metacognitive analysis of craving: implications for treatment

Cravings and urges are a common component of clinical interventions for substance use and dependence. The conceptual status of this variable remains uncertain, however. Cognitive, conditioning, pharmacological, and biological explanatory models of craving have been developed in recent years. In this article a metacognitive analysis of craving is outlined in which cravings are construed as metacognitions (i.e., statements about other cognitions). In a metacognitive analysis, craving for psychoactive substances is an indication that the individual is experiencing a cognitive event (i.e., thought, feeling, memory, image, sensation) that is aversive or unpleasant. Consumption of a psychoactive substance is a means of self-regulating such cognitive events. Identifying the cognitive experience implicit in the expression of cravings can inform the clinician of the client's deficiencies in cognitive self-regulation and other coping skills. An illustrative example of a metacognitive analysis is presented.

Metacognition and substance use

Metacognition has been defined as cognition about cognition. Metacognition can include beliefs and attitudes about cognitive events such as thoughts, feelings, memories, images, sensations, and perceptions. Cognitive models of addictions have addressed the role of beliefs and attitudes in substance misuse, but the role of metacognition has been neglected. Metacognitive effects (beliefs about the effect of psychoactive substances on cognition) is differentiated from metacognitive consequences (beliefs about the effect of refraining from psychoactive substances on cognitive experience). In this study of 20 types of cognitive experience in 108 treatment-seeking substance abusers, the major metacognitive effects of drugs and alcohol were reduction, detachment from, and intensification of the cognitive event. The major metacognitive consequences of not consuming a substance included beliefs that the cognitive experience would be too uncomfortable, sleep would be disturbed, persistence of the cognitive event, and intensification of the cognitive event. An interaction between metacognitive effects and consequences and the type of cognitive event was found.