Graduation Year

2015

Publication Date

Spring 4-24-2015

Abstract

The current study examined whether the combination of anxiety sensitivity (AS) and stress affected college students’ urge and motive to drink alcohol. Participants (n= 95, 44.2% male, 55.8% female, Mage= 18.82 years) included undergraduate students from Illinois Wesleyan University. Participants were asked to fill out a series of questionnaires, in addition to a short anagram task, which was used to induce stress in half of the sample. A multivariate factorial analysis was used to examine two main effects (AS and stress levels) and one interaction effect. Our hypothesis was partially supported, in that there was only one significant main effect found and no significant interaction effect. More specifically, individuals with high levels of AS were more likely to report greater urges and higher coping motives to drink than individuals with low levels of AS. Levels of stress did not affect one’s urge or motive to drink, nor was there an effect of AS on urge and motive to drink between differing stress conditions.

Disciplines

Psychology

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