Longitudinal Validation of the Urgency Traits Over the First Year of College

Abstract

Research has identified 2 emotion-based dispositions to rash action, referred to as positive urgency and negative urgency. They are thought to reflect tendencies to engage in rash acts when in extremely positive and extremely negative moods, respectively. In this article, we describe the first direct test of this hypothesis. We measured the urgency traits and risky behavior involvement while in extremely positive and negative moods over the course of the first year of college for 292 students. After controlling for sex, typical mood state, and prior mood-based rash behavior, positive urgency predicted increases in positive mood-based rash action, and negative urgency predicted increases in negative mood-based rash action during the first year of college. These results provide further evidence for the validity of the theory of emotion-based rash action and for the measures of positive and negative urgency.

Acknowledgments

Portions of this research were supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) award 5 F31 AA 016265–03 to Melissa Cyders and NIAAA award 1 RO1 AA 016166 to Gregory Smith.

Notes

¹Some of the past longitudinal work has used this sample. Studies with this sample have demonstrated that different impulsivity-related constructs (positive urgency, negative urgency, sensation seeking, lack of planning, and lack of perseverance) predict different types of risky behaviors (Cyders & Smith, 2008b; Cyders et al., 2009; Zapolski, Cyders et al., 2009). Each of those studies assessed behavior in general (alcohol consumption, gambling, drug use, risky sex); none assessed involvement in those behaviors when experiencing intense emotion. None used the criterion measure used in this study.

²We also dichotomized the emotion-based, rash action scale to reflect either endorsement of neither item or endorsement of one or more items, and we then reran each regression analysis using binary logistic regression. The results of those analyses were entirely consistent with what we report here: Each predictor that was significant using ordinal regression was significant using binary logistic regression.

³Prediction results using the fully imputed sample were the same: Positive urgency prospectively predicted Time 2 positive, mood-based, rash action, and negative urgency did not; negative urgency prospectively predicted Time 2 negative, mood-based, rash action, and positive urgency did not.

*p < .01.

*p < .05.

** p < .001.

*p < .05.

** p < .001.