Associations between affect and alcohol consumption in adults: an ecological momentary assessment study

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptives for study variables

Variable		M	SD	Min.	Max.
Gender Female n(%) Male n(%)	109(67.28) 53(32.72)
Level of education* Low education level n(%) Middle education level n(%) High education level n(%)	5(3.09) 57(35.18) 100(61.73)
Age		36.07	9.23	20	50
BMI		24.45	3.91	17.18	39.56
Daily negative affect^a		1.43	0.60	1	4.70
Daily positive affect^a		5.35	0.92	2.54	7
Momentary negative affect^b		1.41	0.72	1	6
Momentary positive affect^b		5.40	1.13	1	7

Notes: *Low education level: none, elementary school, and lower general education. Middle education level: intermediate general and intermediate vocational education, higher general secondary or pre-university education. High education level: higher vocational or academic education. ^a Descriptives are based on aggregates per subject per day of momentary raw scores. ^b Descriptives are based on raw scores of the data.

Table 2. Bivariate correlations among affect variables

		Daily pre-consumption variables
	Variable	1	2	3	4
1	Within-person negative affect^a	–
2	Within-person positive affect^a	− 0.44***	–
3	Between-person negative affect^b	0.00	0.00	–
4	Between-person positive affect^b	0.00	0.00	− 0.62***	–
		Momentary variables
		1	2	3	4
1	Within-person negative affect^a	–
2	Within-person positive affect^a	− 0.31***	–
3	Between-person negative affect^b	0.00	0.00	–
4	Between-person positive affect^b	0.00	0.00	− 0.61***	–

Notes: ^a For within-person variables values were grand-mean centered and subsequently person-mean centered. ^b Between-person variables were person-means of the grand-mean centered data.

***p < .001.

Table 3. Associations between affect variables and alcohol consumption

	Negative affect
	Likelihood of alcohol use			Quantity of alcohol use
Within persons^a	OR	p	95% CI	B	p	SE
Daily negative affect	1.98	0.02	1.11, 3.53	.09	0.56	.15
Momentary negative affect	1.11	0.28	.92, 1.35	‒ .16	0.04	.08
Between persons^b
Daily negative affect	.89	0.62	.56, 1.42	.09	0.69	.22
Momentary negative affect	.99	0.92	.75, 1.30	.23	0.14	.15
	Positive affect
	Likelihood of alcohol use			Quantity of alcohol use
Within persons^a	OR	p	CI	B	p	SE
Daily positive affect	1.33	0.15	.90, 1.98	.21	0.08	.12
Momentary positive affect	1.21	0.01	1.05, 1.40	.02	0.82	.07
Between persons^b
Daily positive affect	1.00	0.99	.74, 1.35	.08	0.43	.10
Momentary positive affect	.96	0.62	.80, 1.14	.07	0.52	.10

Notes: ^a Within-person daily and momentary affect were person-mean centered to reflect respectively daily- and momentary-level deviations from a person’s typical level of daily and momentary affect. ^b Between-person daily and momentary affect are based on individuals’ means across all days and momentary assessments respectively. Between-person daily and momentary affect were grand-mean centered.

Figure 1. (a) The intercepts (b = −.04, p = .21) and slopes (b = .35, p = .21) of negative affect were not significantly different before and after alcohol consumption. For comparability, the intercepts and slopes of negative affect on non-drinking days are displayed in the figure. The mean time of the first drink on drinking days was used as a transition point to split non-drinking days into “pre-drinking” and “post-drinking” periods. The dotted line indicates the time of the first alcoholic drink/transition point. Negative affect before the transition point was not significantly different from that after the transition point (intercepts_b = .09, p = .15; slopes_b = −2.18, p = .07) on non-drinking days. (b) The intercepts (b = .17, p = .001) and slopes (b = −1.33, p = <.001) of positive affect were significantly different before and after alcohol consumption. For comparability, the intercepts and slopes of positive affect on non-drinking days are displayed in the figure. The mean time of the first drink on drinking days was used as a transition point to split non-drinking days into “pre-drinking” and “post-drinking” periods. The dotted line indicates the time of the first alcoholic drink/transition point. Positive affect before the transition point was not significantly different from that after the transition point (intercepts_b = −.08, p = .42; slopes_b = .83, p = .64) on non-drinking days