The Relationship Between Psychological Distress, Negative Cognitions, and Expectancies on Problem Drinking: Exploring a Growing Problem Among University Students.
College drinking is fueled by a thinking chain: distress → poor mood control → positive booze expectancies.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked university students to fill out four questionnaires. One measured current stress and mood. One asked about negative thoughts. One asked what students expect alcohol to do for them. The last asked how often they drink in risky ways.
No one got any treatment. The goal was to see if distress leads to drinking through two thinking steps: poor mood control and positive booze expectancies.
What they found
The data fit a three-link chain. Higher distress predicted weaker mood-control skills. Weaker mood control predicted stronger beliefs that alcohol helps. Those beliefs then predicted more problem drinking.
All three links together explained the path from stress to risky drinking better than any single link alone.
How this fits with other research
Stevens et al. (2018) also used surveys with college students. They found self-efficacy, not other thoughts, drove anxious students to act. Both studies show thoughts matter, but Eussen et al. (2016) points to expectancies while Stevens et al. (2018) points to confidence.
Okuno et al. (2022) linked safety behaviors to social deficits in teens. Like Eussen et al. (2016), they show thoughts can chain into real-life problems. The age and behavior differ, but the pattern is similar: more unhelpful thoughts, worse outcomes.
de Merlier et al. (2024) actually changed behavior by cutting social media. Their work reminds us that surveys like Eussen et al. (2016) only map the path; they do not test fixes.
Why it matters
If you work with young adults who drink to cope, check for both poor mood-control skills and rosy alcohol expectancies. You can target either link in your intervention plan. Teaching quick stress-reduction tactics or challenging “alcohol helps” beliefs may break the chain before drinking starts.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Few studies have sought to understand the concurrent relationship between cognitive and affective processes on alcohol use and negative alcohol-related consequences, despite both being identified as predictive risk factors in the college population. More research is needed to understand the relationships between identified factors of problem drinking among this at-risk population. The purpose of this study was to test if the relationship between psychological distress and problem drinking among university students (N = 284; M-age = 19.77) was mediated by negative affect regulation strategies and positive alcohol-related expectancies. Two latent mediation models of problem drinking were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The parsimonious three-path mediated latent model was supported by the data, as evidenced by several model fit indices. Furthermore, the alternate saturated model provided similar fit to the data, but contained several direct relationships that were not statistically significant. The relationship between psychological distress and problem drinking was mediated by an extended contributory chain, including negative affect regulation and positive alcohol-related expectancies. Implications for prevention and treatment, as well as future directions, are discussed.
Behavior modification, 2016 · doi:10.1177/0145445515601793