Background and objectives: Numerous studies have investigated drinking motives and alcohol-related
interpretation biases (IBs) separately. However, less is known about the relationship between them.
Therefore, the present study examined whether coping and enhancement drinking motives were specifically
related to negative and positive alcohol-related IBs, respectively. Furthermore, it was investigated
whether such biases predict future drinking, especially in individuals with low levels of executive
control (EC).
Methods: Participants were male and female university students. The Drinking Motives QuestionnaireRevised
(DMQ-R; Cooper, 1994) was administered to measure participants' drinking motives. To measure
alcohol-related IBs, an adapted version of the Encoding Recognition Task (ERT) was used. During the
ERT, participants were asked to read ambiguous alcohol-related scenarios. In a subsequent recognition
phase, participants interpreted these scenarios. A classical Stroop was applied to assess levels of EC.
Results: Coping motives but not enhancement motives were a unique predictor of the tendency to
interpret negatively valenced ambiguous alcohol-relevant situations in an alcohol-related manner. This
relationship was significant even when controlling for other relevant predictors. Neither coping nor
enhancement motives were predictive of positive alcohol-related IBs. Concerning the prediction of
prospective drinking, results showed that particularly the negative alcohol-related IB predicted prospective
drinking. However, EC did not moderate the prediction of prospective drinking by either positive
or negative interpretation biases.
Limitations: The alcohol-ERT might not be the most optimal paradigm for assessing implicit alcoholrelated
IBs.
Conclusions: The present results emphasize the role of negative affect in the context of drinking motives
and alcohol-related IBs. Follow-up studies are needed to test the robustness of these findings, and to
further explore the general interplay between drinking motives and alcohol-related IBs.