Incorporating social anxiety into a model of college student problematic drinking

College problem drinking and social anxiety are significant public health concerns with highly negative consequences. College students are faced with a variety of novel social situations and situations encouraging alcohol consumption. The current study involved developing a path model of college problem drinking, including social anxiety, in 316 college students referred to an alcohol intervention due to a campus alcohol violation. Contrary to hypotheses, social anxiety generally had an inverse relationship with problem drinking. As expected, perceived drinking norms had important positive, direct effects on drinking variables. However, the results generally did not support the hypotheses regarding the mediating or moderating function of the valuations of expected effects and provided little support for the mediating function of alcohol expectancies in the relations among social anxiety and alcohol variables. Therefore, it seems that the influence of peers may be more important for college students than alcohol expectancies and valuations of alcohol’s effects are. College students appear to be a unique population in respect to social anxiety and problem drinking. The implications of these results for college prevention and intervention programs were discussed

College Students and Problematic Drinking: A Review of the Literature

Problem drinking during the college years is a significant public health concern. The goal of the current review was to examine the primary psychosocial factors that predict problem drinking in college students. Variables examined included demographic variables, personality, drinking history, alcohol expectancies, drinking motives, stress and coping, activity involvement, and peer and family influence. Evidence from studies of college drinking indicated that the variables associated with college drinking seem to vary at levels dealing with one’s personality and coping mechanisms, one’s thought processes about drinking, and the environment. It seems that expectancies and drinking motives may serve as explanations for the pathways from certain personality types (i.e., sensation seeking and neurotic) to problem drinking in the college setting. Factors that predicted future drinking problems after college were also examined. Overall, it seems that interventions and prevention programs would need to reach college students at all three levels—the environment, individual personality traits, and cognitive processes. Future research should address the limitations in the previous research as well as test comprehensive models of college drinking

Incorporating social anxiety into a model of college student problematic drinking

College problem drinking and social anxiety are significant public health concerns with highly negative consequences. College students are faced with a variety of novel social situations and situations encouraging alcohol consumption. The current study involved developing a path model of college problem drinking, including social anxiety, in 316 college students referred to an alcohol intervention due to a campus alcohol violation. Contrary to hypotheses, social anxiety generally had an inverse relationship with problem drinking. As expected, perceived drinking norms had important positive, direct effects on drinking variables. However, the results generally did not support the hypotheses regarding the mediating or moderating function of the valuations of expected effects and provided little support for the mediating function of alcohol expectancies in the relations among social anxiety and alcohol variables. Therefore, it seems that the influence of peers may be more important for college students than alcohol expectancies and valuations of alcohol’s effects are. College students appear to be a unique population in respect to social anxiety and problem drinking. The implications of these results for college prevention and intervention programs were discussed

An Initial Examination of the Role of Gender in Social Anxiety and Self-medication. Primary Psychiatry

Social anxiety disorder (also known as social phobia) is a common, debilitating disorder. Social anxiety disorder is the fourth most prevalent disorder, with lifetime prevalence rates of 12.1% (Kessler et al., 2005). Socially anxious individuals have demonstrated impairments in academic, occupational, and social functioning (Stein, Torgrud, & Walker, 2000 ) Social anxiety and substance abuse appear to be related. •Substances may be used to reduce distress in social situations (e.g. Tran Haaga, & Chambless, 1997; Goodwin, Fergusson, & Horwood. 2004; Ham, Hope, White, & Rivers, 2002) •Kushner, Sher, and Erikson (1999) concluded that regardless of whether a substance use problem occurred first or an anxiety problem occurred they feed into each other reciprocally. Previous research has suggested that young adult women experience social anxiety to a greater extent than men, and that anxiety and substance use are more strongly linked for women than for men. In the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse survey, girls with alcohol use disorders had higher rates of anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders than boys (CASA, 2003). Although, there is research that examines alcohol use, social anxiety, and gender, most is either outdated or the studies have contrary findings. This study was designed to investigate the links between social anxiety (by fear of negative evaluation), substance use, and gender among emerging adults. As there is evidence to suggest that gender could serve as a moderator the relationshi

Chronic Worry as Avoidance of Arousal

Previous research suggests that worry is primarily a verbal-linguistic activity that may serve as a method of cognitive avoidance of fearful imagery. The purpose of the present study was to examine cognitive avoidance in high worriers (N = 22) and low worriers (N = 24) using psychophysiological measures and a modified dichotic listening task. The task involved presenting neutral words into an unattending ear while worry or neutral scenarios were presented into the attending ear. Participants were given a surprise word recognition test of the words presented to provide evidence of cognitive avoidance beyond self-report. Contrary to the hypotheses, high worriers did not have less physiological reactivity than did low worriers. Low worriers recognized more words than did high worriers overall. High worriers remembered more words from the worry scenario than the neutral condition, as would be expected if they attempted to avoid the worry scenario. Implications for treatment of worry and the use of the dichotic listening task in researching worry are discussed