Negative affect and illicit substance use: The moderating role of self-control

Theories of substance use have historically focused on the role of negative affect and self-control, yet few studies have examined distinct aspects of self-control as moderators of link between negative affect and substance use in the participant’s natural environment. The primary goal of this study was to examine whether different aspects of self-control (monitoring, adjusting, and persisting) measured using multiple methods (self-report, psychophysiological, behavior) moderate the relation between momentary negative affect and illicit substance use in a sample of current substance users with a history of substance use disorders. I predicted that the adjusting and persisting, but not the monitoring aspects of self-control would moderate the relation between momentary negative affect and substance use, such that negative affect would be positively related to substance use at low levels of monitoring and adjusting. Of the hypotheses, the best support was for the moderating role of the adjusting aspects of self-control in the negative affect - substance use relation. Specifically, negative affect was positively related to substance use at low levels of adjusting, but negatively related substance use at high levels of adjusting. My other hypotheses received limited support. This project makes several clear additions to the substance use literature that will inform future research. Most important is the finding that the adjusting aspects of self-control seem particularly important for understanding for whom negative affect may promote substance use. Persons who adjust well, in the face of errors, may be resilient to mood-dependent substance use. The null results for the other aspects of self-control (i.e., monitoring and persistence) may suggest that these aspects are less important than adjusting among current substance users

Motor control accuracy: A consequential probe of individual differences in emotion regulation.

Two studies (total N = 147) sought to model emotion-regulation processes in cognitive-motoric terms. Hostile or nonhostile thoughts were primed and, immediately following, individuals held a joystick as accurately as possible on a presented visual target. Study 1 revealed that the activation of hostile thoughts impaired motor control at low levels of agreeableness but facilitated motor control at high levels of agreeableness, consistent with emotion-regulation views of this trait. Study 2 did not assess the trait of agreeableness but rather sought to determine whether better motor control following activated hostile thoughts would predict lesser reactivity to stressors in an experience-sampling protocol. It did, and relevant results are reported for daily anger, negative affect, and positive affect. In addition, and consistent with the agreeableness findings of Study 1, better motor control that follows hostile thoughts predicted greater empathy on high-stress days. Motor control probes of the present type thus appear consequential in understanding emotion-regulation processes and successes in emotion regulation

Emotion repair and the direction of attention in aversive contexts: Evidence from an attention-demanding task

Two studies (total N = 145) examined the novel idea that individual differences in emotion repair may relate to the attention deployment stage of emotion regulation. More specifically, it was hypothesized that high repair individuals would be able to maintain focus on an attention-demanding task in an aversive context, but that low repair individuals would not, in both cases relative to a control condition. This sort of interactive hypothesis was supported in Study 1, which manipulated aversive events through the use of concurrent auditory stimulation and conceptual replication was found in Study 2. Together, the two studies offer suggestive evidence for the role of attention direction in emotion repair

Impulsivity and Aggression: A Meta-analysis Using the UPPS Model of Impulsivity

Trait impulsivity has long been proposed to play a role in aggression, but the results across studies have been mixed. One possible explanation for the mixed results is that impulsivity is a multifaceted construct and some, but not all, facets are related to aggression. The goal of the current meta-analysis was to determine the relation between the different facets of impulsivity (i.e., negative urgency, positive urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking) and aggression. The results from 93 papers with 105 unique samples (N = 36, 215) showed significant and small-to-medium correlations between each facet of impulsivity and aggression across several different forms of aggression, with more impulsivity being associated with more aggression. Moreover, negative urgency (r = .24, 95% [.18, .29]), positive urgency (r = .34, 95% [.19, .44]), and lack of premeditation (r = .23, 95% [.20, .26]) had significantly stronger associations with aggression than the other scales (rs < .18). Two-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling showed that these effects were not due to overlap among facets of impulsivity. These results help advance the field of aggression research by clarifying the role of impulsivity and may be of interest to researchers and practitioners in several disciplines