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