Hazardous Drinking Mediates the Relation Between Externalizing Personality and Reduced Adherence to COVID-19 Public Health Guidelines in University Students.

Using a multigroup path analysis, we examined if hazardous alcohol use mediated the relations between elevated externalizing personality traits (i.e., impulsivity or sensation seeking) and reduced adherence to COVID-19 public health guidelines.

High peak drinking levels mediate the relation between impulsive personality and injury risk in emerging adults.

Background: Alcohol-induced injury is one of the leading causes of preventable morbidity and mortality. We investigated the relationship between impulsive personality and physical injury (e.g.

Do anxiety symptoms and coping motives serially mediate the association between psychotic-like experiences and cannabis-related problems in undergraduate recent cannabis users?

Many Canadian emerging adults (ages 18-25 years) use cannabis, with 60 % of past-three-month users experiencing one or more cannabis-related problems (i.e., adverse consequences of use).

Do Anxiety Symptoms Mediate the Association Between Cannabis Use Frequency and Psychotic-Like Experiences in Emerging Adult Undergraduates?

Objective: Cannabis is commonly used by Canadian emerging adults (ages 18-25 years), many of whom attend post-secondary institutions. Frequent cannabis use is linked with psychotic-like experiences (PLEs); however, the exact nature of this association remains unclear. Anxiety symptoms may mediate this association, as they are prevalent in emerging adults and have been independently linked with both cannabis use and PLEs.

Inhibited personality traits, internalizing symptoms, and drinking to cope during the COVID-19 pandemic among emerging adults.

Emerging adults with high levels of inhibited personality traits may be at-risk for drinking to cope during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current research explored mediational pathways between two inhibited personality traits (anxiety sensitivity (AS) and hopelessness (HOP)), internalizing symptoms (anxiety, depression, and COVID-19 distress), and coping drinking motives (drinking to cope with anxiety and drinking to cope with depression) during the pandemic. Cross-sectional data were collected from 879 undergraduate drinkers (79% female, 83% White, 18-25 years old) at five Canadian universities from January-April 2021.

Psychometric properties of a brief version of the COVID-19 Stress Scales (CSS-B) in young adult undergraduates.

We extracted items to create a brief version of the COVID-19 Stress Scale (i.e., CSS-B) and examined its psychometric properties in young adults.

Cognitions mediate the influence of personality on adolescent cannabis use initiation.

Aims: Much research indicates that an individual's personality impacts the initiation and escalation of substance use and problems in youth. The acquired-preparedness model suggests that personality influences substance use by modifying learning about substances, which then affects substance use. The current study used longitudinal data to test whether automatic cannabis-related cognitions (memory associations and outcome expectancy liking) mediate the relationship between four personality traits with later cannabis use.

Automatic cognitions as mediators of parental influence on adolescent cannabis use.

Aims: Multiple social influences affect cannabis use in adolescents, including parental and peer cannabis use norms. However, the mechanisms of influence underlying these social influences remain unclear. Recent studies have suggested that cognitions about cannabis use and the effects of cannabis may mediate social influences.

When and How Do Brief Alcohol Interventions in Primary Care Reduce Alcohol Use and Alcohol-Related Consequences among Adolescents?

Objective: To systematically describe when and how brief alcohol interventions delivered to adolescents in primary care settings reduce alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences among adolescents, using realist review methodology.

Study Design: Eleven electronic databases, gray literature, and reference screening were searched up to June 2016; 11 brief interventions published in 13 studies met inclusion criteria. Intervention design components (delivery context and intervention mechanisms) underlying brief alcohol interventions for adolescents were extracted and linked to alcohol use and related consequences.

Childhood Maltreatment and Development of Substance Use Disorders: A Review and a Model of Cognitive Pathways.

Exposure to childhood maltreatment (CM) is associated with increased risk for developing substance use disorders (SUDs). CM exerts negative effects on cognitive abilities including intellectual performance, memory, attention, and executive function. Parallel cognitive impairments have been observed in SUDs.

Shifting patterns of variance in adolescent alcohol use: Testing consumption as a developing trait-state.

While average rates of change in adolescent alcohol consumption are frequently studied, variability arising from situational and dispositional influences on alcohol use has been comparatively neglected. We used variance decomposition to test differences in variability resulting from year-to-year fluctuations in use (i.e.

Strengthening the Canadian alcohol advertising regulatory system.

Research evidence points to harmful effects from alcohol advertising among children and youth. In particular, exposure to alcohol advertising has been associated with adolescents drinking both earlier and heavier. Although current federal and provincial guidelines have addressed advertising practices to prevent underage drinking, practice has not been supported by existing policy.

The mediating role of alcohol-related memory associations on the relation between perceived parental drinking and the onset of adolescents' alcohol use.

Aims: The aim of the current study was to examine the mediating role of alcohol-related memory associations in the relation between perceived parental drinking and the onset of adolescents' alcohol use. Gender and grade were also included in the analyses.

Design: We tested a mediation model within a structural path modelling framework using longitudinal data (two waves).

Outcome expectancy liking: a self-generated, self-coded measure predicts adolescent substance use trajectories.

This study tested the predictive validity of a novel, brief, and easy-to-use self-report measure of expectancies and their subjective values for alcohol and marijuana use. Canadian students in Grades 7 to 11 were administered paper-and-pencil questionnaires once per year for 3 consecutive years (Krank et al., 2011).

Prevention education effects on fundamental memory processes.

This study evaluated effects of a key session from a nationally recognized drug abuse prevention program on basic memory processes in 211 high-risk youth in Southern California. In a randomized, between-subject design, the authors manipulated assignment to a Myth and Denial program session and the time of assessment (immediate vs. 1-week delay).

Structural, concurrent, and predictive validity of the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale in early adolescence.

A brief personality risk profile (23 items), the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale was tested for concurrent and predictive validity for substance use in 1139 adolescents (grades 8-10) from a mid-sized city in western Canada. The SURPS was administered in two waves of a longitudinal study separated by 12 months (2003-04). As expected, four subscales were supported by confirmatory factor and metric invariance analysis.

Self-coded indirect memory associations and alcohol and marijuana use in college students.

Indirect memory associations for substance use predict both the concurrent and prospective levels of substance use. These methods assess spontaneous, possibly implicit, and easily accessible associations that predict substance use over direct (explicit) methods of assessment (e.g.

Paradoxical effects of alcohol information on alcohol outcome expectancies.

Background: Cognitive associations with alcohol predict both current and future use in youth and young adults. Much cognitive and social cognitive research suggests that exposure to information may have unconscious influences on thinking and behavior. The present study assessed the impact of information statements on the accessibility of alcohol outcome expectancies.

Impulsivity, impulsive and reflective processes and the development of alcohol use and misuse in adolescents and young adults.

This paper contrasts dual-process and personality approaches in the prediction of addictive behaviors and related risk behaviors. In dual-process models, behavior is described as the joint outcome of qualitatively different "impulsive" (or associative) and "reflective" processes. There are important individual differences regarding both types of processes, and the relative strength of both in a specific situation is influenced by prior behavior and state variables (e.

Self-coded indirect memory associations in a brief school-based intervention for substance use suspensions.

This study assessed the concurrent validity of self-generated and self-coded substance use associations for marijuana and alcohol use. Grades seven to twelve students were assessed as part of a brief intervention program in lieu of suspension for substance use infractions in school. During the cognitive assessment, students generated memory associations to probes for high-risk situations and desirable outcomes.

Goal- and signal-directed incentive: conditioned approach, seeking, and consumption established with unsweetened alcohol in rats.

Rationale: Many theories of addictive behavior propose that cues signaling drug administration influence the likelihood of drug-taking and drug-seeking behavior.

Objectives: We investigated the behavioral impact of cues associated with unsweetened ethanol and their interaction with responding maintained by ethanol self-administration. Our goal was to establish the influence of such cues on ethanol seeking.

New developments in prevention and early intervention for alcohol abuse in youths.

This article summarizes a symposium held at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was prepared by the conference co-organizers/co-chairs with substantial input from each of the symposium participants. Increasingly, alcohol abuse interventions focus on preventing alcohol problems or intervening early before risky drinking behavior becomes ingrained.

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.

Pavlovian conditioning with ethanol: sign-tracking (autoshaping), conditioned incentive, and ethanol self-administration.

Background: Conditioned incentive theories of addictive behavior propose that cues signaling a drug's reinforcing effects activate a central motivational state. Incentive motivation enhances drug-taking and drug-seeking behavior. We investigated the behavioral response to cues associated with ethanol and their interaction with operant self-administration of ethanol.

Environmental context conditioning with ethanol reduces the aversive effects of ethanol in the acquisition of self-administration in rats.

Rationale: Many recent theoretical approaches to drug-taking behavior feature a role for Pavlovian conditioning. Despite growing evidence for that role, the particular contributions of Pavlovian conditioning to self-administration are not clear. For example, few studies have addressed the effects of Pavlovian conditioning on the acquisition of self-administration.