The relationship between drinking motives and alcohol-related
interpretation biases
article info
abstract
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 spe-
ci
fi
cally related to negative and positive alcohol-related IBs, respectively. Furthermore, it was investi-
gated 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 Questionnaire-
Revised (DMQ-R; Cooper, 1994) was administered to measure participants' drinking motives. To mea-
sure 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 signi
fi
cant 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 pro-
spective 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 alcohol-
related 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
fi
ndings, and to
further explore the general interplay between drinking motives and alcohol-related IBs.
1. Introduction
Research into the contribution of (cognitive) factors related to
alcohol misuse and abuse has been characterized by work from
various theoretical perspectives. In the area of drinking motives,Cooper and colleagues provided a number of signi
fi
cant contribu-
tions, among them the development of the motivational model of
alcohol use (
Cooper, 1994
;
Cooper, Frone, Russell,
&
Mudar, 1995
).
According to this model, drinking is conceptualized as behavior
which is motivated by the need for affect regulation. That is, people
drink to reduce negative affective states or enhance positive af-
fective states. As such, drinking motives re
fl
ect underlying moti-
vational reasons for alcohol use. Cooper characterizes drinking
motives in terms of their reinforcing nature (positive or negative
reinforcement) and their source (internal or external), resulting in
four drinking motives. The two internal affective motives for
alcohol use are coping motives (i.e., drinking to decrease negative
affect) and enhancement motives (i.e., drinking to increase positive