Fear of positive evaluation and alcohol use problems among college students: the unique impact of drinking motives

Abstract

Background and Objectives: There is strong empirical support that individuals with elevated social anxiety are at risk for alcohol-related impairment. Because social anxiety is a multifaceted construct, it is important to consider which specific facets contribute to alcohol problem vulnerability. For example, although social anxiety has traditionally been conceptualized as a fear of negative evaluation (FNE), emerging data suggest that fear of positive evaluation (FPE) is also an important factor in pathological social anxiety. The current manuscript reports novel findings regarding FPE, alcohol use motives, and reported alcohol use problems. Design and Methods: Participants included undergraduates from two American universities (n = 351) who completed a battery of measures assessing fears of evaluation, drinking motives, and alcohol usage related problems. Results: FPE significantly predicted alcohol use problems, above and beyond FNE. Also, coping and conformity motives for drinking, but not social or enhancement motives, each uniquely mediated the relationship between FPE and alcohol use problems. Conclusions: FPE may be an important cognitive-affective vulnerability factor. With additional clinical research, FPE could serve as a meaningful therapeutic target in interventions designed to decrease problem drinking among highly socially anxious patients.

Keywords:

• alcohol
• drinking motives
• social anxiety
• social phobia
• fear of positive evaluation
• fear of negative evaluation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Four initially non-normally distributed (skewness or kurtosis ≥ 1.28) measures (i.e., age; DMQ-R: Conformity motives subscale; RAPI; and typical alcohol consumption) were square-root transformed (all transformed skewness and kurtosis values ≤ 0.87) before being included in analyses.

2. Twenty participants did not report their age in the current sample. No other data was missing.

3. To explore possible moderating effects of sex on the relationship between FPE and alcohol problems, the interaction term of sex and FPE was also entered into the equation. There was no significant interaction effect, t = 1.00, p = .32, indicating that sex did not moderate the relation between FPE and alcohol problems.

4. It is worth noting that the pattern of results held when enhancement motives (uncorrelated to FPE) was removed from the mediation model.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) [grant number 5R21DA029811-02], [grant number 1R34DA031937-01A1].