Intolerance of Uncertainty, Negative Reinforcement Alcohol Use Motives, and Hazardous Drinking in College Students with Clinically Elevated Worry

Abstract

Background: Hazardous drinking has remained high for college students in recent years, and individuals who endorse drinking to cope with emotional distress or to conform socially report higher levels of alcohol use. Intolerance of uncertainty, a core process underlying generalized anxiety disorder, has been linked to negative reinforcement drinking motives; however, no research, to date, has examined the role of intolerance of uncertainty in terms of alcohol use motives and hazardous drinking among individuals with generalized anxiety disorder. Objective: The current study was designed to examine the relationships between intolerance of uncertainty, coping and conformity alcohol use motives, and hazardous drinking in an analogue generalized anxiety disorder sample. Methods: Participants were 323 college students (M_age = 19.25, SD = 2.23, Range = 18–40) who endorsed past-year alcohol use and clinically elevated levels of worry. Self-report measures were completed online for course credit. Results: Partially consistent with our hypotheses, uncertainty paralysis predicted greater levels of coping motives, but not conformity motives. Desire for predictability did not predict either drinking motive. Mediation analyses revealed that there was a significant indirect effect of uncertainty paralysis on more hazardous drinking through greater coping motives. Conclusion: Overall, these findings highlight the potential utility of targeting behavioral inhibition due to uncertainty to reduce unhealthy coping via alcohol use and subsequent hazardous alcohol use.

Keywords:

• Intolerance of uncertainty
• alcohol use
• drinking motives
• mediation
• worry

Data availability

Data is available from the corresponding author upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

Access to REDCap for data collection was supported by a Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training Grant (UL-RR026314) awarded to the University of Cincinnati.