Anxiety sensitivity is the fear that anxiety symptoms are indicative of greater harm, and is a risk factor for heavy alcohol use and substance use disorders. In existing research, there are gaps on the exact alcohol-related consequences and how anxiety sensitivity may be related to those consequences. One important gap is the link between anxiety sensitivity and alcohol-induced blackouts (alcohol-induced amnesia). Blackouts have negative emotional and social consequences for college-aged students. Drinking motives may be a pathway through which anxiety sensitivity could be related to blackouts. Drinking motives regulate the final decision to drink or not drink, meaning that they are the most proximal factor for engaging in drinking. The current project proposal includes a two-aim study to address the relationship between anxiety sensitivity, drinking motives, and blackouts. Aim 1 will focus on evaluating the potential relations between alcohol sensitivity and alcohol-related blackouts in college-aged students while examining the possibility of drinking motives being a mediating factor underlying that relationship. We hypothesize that there is a positive relationship between anxiety sensitivity and blackouts through drinking motives. Aim 2 is to evaluate if there are additional potential modifiers that could amplify or buffer the relationship between anxiety sensitivity, drinking motives, and blackouts such as gender and perceived norms. The data for Aim 1 will be taken from an annual student health survey. The participants were recruited through email invitations at a mid-sized midwestern university. Both aspects of the study will use questions from the Anxiety Sensitivity Index to measure Anxiety sensitivity, the Modified Drinking Motives Questionnaire to measure drinking motives, and lab-created questions to measure blackouts. Aim 2 will also involve self-report demographic questions as well as the Drinking Norms Rating form and the Injunctive Norms Questionnaire to measure perceived drinking norms. Data analysis is ongoing. Implications will be discussed.
Author(s): Abigail Meikle, Psychology and Premedical Studies Major
Advisor(s): Rose Marie Ward, Department of Psychology
Rachel Geyer, Department of Psychology
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