Implicit Cognition and Addiction: A Tool for Explaining Paradoxical Behavior

Research on implicit cognition and addiction has expanded greatly during the past decade. This research area provides new ways to understand why people engage in behaviors that they know are harmful or counterproductive in the long run. Implicit cognition takes a different view from traditional cognitive approaches to addiction by assuming that behavior is often not a result of a reflective decision that takes into account the pros and cons known by the individual. Instead of a cognitive algebra integrating many cognitions relevant to choice, implicit cognition assumes that the influential cognitions are the ones that are spontaneously activated during critical decision points. This selective review highlights many of the consistent findings supporting predictive effects of implicit cognition on substance use and abuse in adolescents and adults; reveals a recent integration with dual-process models; outlines the rapid evolution of different measurement tools; and introduces new routes for intervention

Automatic Activation of Alcohol Concepts in Response to Positive Outcomes of Alcohol Use

Seventy-one subjects with various levels of drinking experience completed a computerized semantic priming task. Prime phrases (describing positive outcomes of drinking alcohol or neutral phrases) were presented immediately before a target word (either alcohol-related or not). The results replicated earlier basic research examining the effects of semantically related primes on the processing of subsequent words. Furthermore, the results provided evidence that, for heavy drinking subjects, the presentation of phrases describing positive drinking outcomes significantly primed, or facilitated, responses to the alcohol-related words. These results are consistent with the view that for some individuals, thoughts about certain outcomes automatically prime, or make accessible, concepts related to alcohol use. An increase in the accessibility of these concepts has important implications for behavioral decisions about alcohol consumption

Is Anxiety Sensitivity Associated with COVID-19 Related Distress and Adherence among Emerging Adults?

We investigated whether anxiety sensitivity (AS) is associated with increased distress and adherence to public health guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic among undergraduates, and whether increased distress mediates the relationship between AS and increased adherence. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1318 first- and second-year undergraduates (mean age of 19.2 years; 79.5% females) from five Canadian universities. Relevant subscales of the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale (SURPS) and the Big Five Inventory-10 (BFI-10) were used to assess AS and neuroticism. Three measures tapped distress: the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for depressive symptoms, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) for anxiety symptoms, and the Brief COVID-19 Stress Scales (CSS-B) for COVID-19-specific distress. The COVID-19 Adherence scale (CAD) assessed adherence to COVID-19 containment measures. AS was significantly independently associated with higher general distress (both anxiety and depressive symptoms) and higher COVID-19-specific distress, after controlling age, sex, study site, and neuroticism. Moreover, AS indirectly predicted greater adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures through higher COVID-19-specific distress. Interventions targeting higher AS might be helpful for decreasing both general and COVID-19-specific distress, whereas interventions targeting lower AS might be helpful for increasing adherence to public health containment strategies, in undergraduates.Arts and Social Sciences, Irving K. Barber Faculty of (Okanagan)Non UBCPsychology, Department of (Okanagan)ReviewedFacultyResearcherGraduat

Context Effects on Alcohol Cognitions

This article summarizes a symposium on context and alcohol‐related cognitions presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The studies reported here examine how the manipulation of contextual variables influences the availability of alcohol outcome expectancies and implicit memories for alcohol associations. The symposium illustrates the range of context variables and shows some of the potential impact of retrieval on cognitions that predict alcohol use. Two of the studies explore naturalistic drinking contexts: one examines the impact of stress induction, and one assesses within survey question placement effects. A variety of measures of alcohol cognitions were used. The results demonstrate that alcohol cognitions are more accessible in alcohol‐related contexts. Moreover, availability of alcohol associations and expectancies depended on individual differences. These results underscore the potential value of memory processes in the retrieval and measurement of alcohol cognitions. The findings have direct implications for improving methods of predicting alcohol use and in understanding the role of alcohol cognitions in various contexts associated with alcohol use