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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Zachary Petzel
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Elsevier Ltd, 2019.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Risky alcohol use is prevalent among college students. Pre-intervention research has established methods of influencing alcohol cognition and reducing short-term alcohol consumption among students using evaluative conditioning (EC), repeatedly pairing alcohol with emotionally valenced images. Specifically, negative EC promotes negative attitudes toward alcohol, but additional research is needed to understand the range of EC effects and conditions under which it is or is not effective. For example, whether pairing alcohol with positive images promotes positive alcohol attitudes has not been tested. Further, drinking motives may influence the effectiveness of conditioning alcohol attitudes, since these motives are strongly associated with emotional stimuli like those presented in EC. The current experiment tested the interaction of drinking motives (coping and enhancement) and EC valence (negative or positive) on implicit alcohol avoidance. Participants (N = 95) were undergraduate students reporting active alcohol use. Results indicated no main effect of EC condition on implicit alcohol avoidance. However, drinking motives interacted with EC procedures assigned to participants. Those reporting greater coping motives exhibited less implicit alcohol avoidance following negative EC, whereas those reporting greater enhancement motives exhibited less alcohol avoidance following positive EC. Findings indicate drinking motives may influence the effectiveness of EC for altering alcohol attitudes. Negative EC did not promote alcohol avoidance among college students reporting higher coping motives, and positive EC only reduced avoidance among students reporting higher enhancement motives. These results indicate drinking motives interact with situational cues to impact both positive and negative responses to alcohol.
Author(s): Petzel ZW, Noel JG
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Addictive Behaviors
Year: 2019
Volume: 92
Pages: 24-27
Print publication date: 01/05/2019
Online publication date: 12/12/2018
Acceptance date: 09/12/2018
Date deposited: 07/01/2021
ISSN (print): 0306-4603
ISSN (electronic): 1873-6327
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.12.010
DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.12.010
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