Mood-Induced Drinking in Coping with Anxiety-Motivated and Socially Motivated Drinkers: a Lab-Based Experiment

Alcohol misuse is a major problem on university campuses. One way to determine which students are at risk is to examine their drinking motives. Coping with anxiety-motivated (CAM) drinkers have been found to have elevated alcohol problems, even after controlling for alcohol consumption levels. Socially motivated (SM) drinkers do not show elevated alcohol problems. The current study investigated the impact of mood induction (positive or anxious) and drinking motive (CAM or SM) on laboratory alcohol consumption levels in a sample of 81 undergraduate drinkers. SM drinkers consumed more alcohol when a positive vs. anxious mood was induced (t(42) = −2.18, p = .04). Contrary to hypotheses, CAM drinkers did not consume more alcohol when an anxious vs. positive mood was induced (t(35) = −0.21, p = .84). However, they did not exhibit the normative pattern of reducing alcohol use when experiencing an anxious mood. CAM drinkers’ increased alcohol problems may be related to this lack of inhibition of drinking when experiencing negative mood states.