Self-control, coping styles, and alcohol outcomes in college students.

Research indicates that coping styles mediate self-control and health outcomes. Emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies (eg, getting advice or planning) are used to address stressors. In contrast, avoidance-focused strategies (eg, substance use) are used to escape distress and are associated with greater alcohol problems.

An experimental investigation of peer rejection and social anxiety on alcohol and cannabis use willingness: Accounting for social contexts and use cues in the laboratory.

Objective: Evidence suggests that social anxiety (SA) is a risk factor for problematic alcohol and cannabis use, particularly during states of social stress. Unfortunately, laboratory studies to date have overlooked decision-making mechanisms (e.g.

Desire to drink as a function of laboratory-induced social stress among adolescents.

Background And Objectives: Research consistently demonstrates a link between social anxiety and alcohol-related problems; however, the majority of work has been retrospective, and conducted with adults. Despite an extensive literature highlighting coping-related motives as an underlying mechanism, real-time work presents mixed findings, and no published research has examined an adolescent sample using experimental psychopathology techniques.

Methods: The current study tested whether (1) history of social anxiety symptoms positively correlated with alcohol-related cognitions following laboratory-induced social stress, (2) state anxiety was positively correlated with alcohol-related cognitions, and (3) whether the nature of the stressor (performance versus rejection) impacted the strength of identified relations, in a sample of community-recruited adolescents reporting recent alcohol use.