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Mõttus alerts us to the widespread predictive heterogeneity of different indicators of the same trait. This heterogeneity violates the assumption that traits have causal unity in their developmental antecedents and effects on outcomes. I would go a step further: broader traits are useful units for description and prediction but not for explaining personality development and personality effects. In most cases, the measured trait indicators are closer to relevant causal mechanisms, and within a network perspective on personality, broader traits as entities with causal potential can be dismissed completely. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology

Five experts respected for their significant contributions to the scientific literature on children of alcoholics (COA's) offer their perspectives in a panel discussion format. The panel members reflect on the historical roots of COA research and comment on its current status and future direction. Enriched by the panelists' variety of backgrounds, research interests, and approaches, the discussion emphasizes the need to consider multiple variables that influence the risk for alcoholism among COA's.

This review article discusses the importance of identifying gene-environment interactions for understanding the etiology and course of alcohol use disorders and related conditions. A number of critical challenges are discussed, including the fact that there is no organizing typology for classifying different types of environmental exposures, many key human environmental risk factors for alcohol dependence have no clear equivalents in other species, much of the genetic variance of alcohol dependence in human is not 'alcohol specific', and the potential range of gene-environment interactions that could be considered is so vast that maintaining statistical control of Type 1 errors is a daunting task. Despite these and other challenges, there appears to be a number of promising approaches that could be taken in order to achieve consilience and ecologically valid translation between human alcohol dependence and animal models. Foremost among these is to distinguish environmental exposures that are thought to have enduring effects on alcohol use motivation (and self-regulation) from situational environmental exposures that facilitate the expression of such motivations but do not, by themselves, have enduring effects. In order to enhance consilience, various domains of human approach motivation should be considered so that relevant environmental exposures can be sampled, as well as the appropriate species to study them in (i.e. where such motivations are ecologically relevant). Foremost among these are social environments, which are central to the initiation and escalation of human alcohol consumption. The value of twin studies, human laboratory studies and pharmacogenetic studies is also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student attrition at colleges across the United States poses a significant problem for students and families, higher educational institutions, and the nation's workforce competing in the global economy. Heavy drinking is a highly plausible contributor to the problem. However, there is little evidence that it is a reliable predictor of attrition. Notably, few studies take into account indicators of collegiate engagement that are associated with both heavy drinking and persistence in college. Event-history analysis was used to estimate the effect of heavy drinking on attrition among 3,290 undergraduates at a large midwestern university during a 4-year period, and student attendance at a number of college events was included as covariates. Results showed that heavy drinking did not predict attrition bivariately or after controlling for precollege predictors of academic success. However, after controlling for event attendance (an important indicator of collegiate engagement), heavy drinking was found to predict attrition. These findings underscore the importance of the college context in showing that heavy drinking does in fact predict attrition and in considering future intervention efforts to decrease attrition and also heavy drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article represents the proceedings of a symposium at the 2004 Research Society on Alcoholism meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, organized and chaired by Peter M. Monti and Fulton T. Crews. The presentations and presenters were (1) Introduction, by Peter M. Monti; (2) Adolescent Binge Drinking Causes Life-Long Changes in Brain, by Fulton T. Crews and Kim Nixon; (3) Functional Neuroimaging Studies in Human Adolescent Drinkers, by Susan F. Tapert; (4) Abnormal Emotional Reactivity as a Risk Factor for Alcoholism, by Robert Miranda, Jr.; (5) Alcohol-Induced Memory Impairments, Including Blackouts, and the Changing Adolescent Brain, by Aaron M. White and H. Scott Swartzwelder; and (6) Discussion, by Kenneth Sher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although research using clinical and convenience samples has shown alcohol use disorders (AUD) to be highly comorbid with tobacco dependence (TD), little work has examined this association prospectively using population-based data. The AUD-TD association was prospectively examined using data from the St. Louis Epidemiological Catchment Area (ECA) Study and its 1-year follow-up as well as from a 16-year follow-up on a subsample of ECA data.Method: Respondents were 3004 (2564, 85%, at Wave 2) participants in the St. Louis household ECA sample, including 444 participants at Year 16 follow-up. At baseline, the sample was predominately White (58%; 38% Black), female (60%), and 44.3 years. Past-year AUD and TD were diagnosed at all waves according to DSM-III criteria.Results: AUDs and TDs were cross-sectionally associated at Years 1, 2, and 16. Controlling for demographics, Year 1 TD prospectively predicted Year 2 AUD, and Year 1 AUD prospectively predicted Year 16 TD. We found evidence for prediction of onset and persistence of both AUD and TD at short-term but not long-term follow-up. Prospective findings were reduced and no longer reached significance when concurrent diagnoses at follow-up were included in the regression models.Conclusions: We observed short-term and long-term associations between AUD and TD. These associations were mediated through concurrent diagnoses with the other substance use disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Although alcohol and tobacco use disorders are highly comorbid, little is known regarding the combined course of these disorders. METHODS: The current study utilized latent class analysis to examine longitudinal patterns of alcohol-tobacco use disorder comorbidity. Participants were 449 young adults (baseline age, 18.5 years; 48% male; 51% with paternal history of alcoholism) assessed five times over 7 years. RESULTS: Five longitudinal types of alcohol or tobacco use disorder over time were identified: nondiagnosing; developmentally limited alcohol use disorder; chronic alcohol use disorder; chronic tobacco use disorder; and comorbid alcohol and tobacco use disorder. These typologies were distinguishable on the basis of family history of alcoholism status and sex. Etiologically important third variables (alcohol expectancies, behavioral undercontrol, childhood stressors) mediated the relation between family history and the latent classes. CONCLUSIONS: Characterizations of alcohol use disorders typically fail to consider important sources of heterogeneity such as course or comorbidity. By simultaneously modeling developmental course and comorbidity with tobacco dependence, we were able to identify distinct trajectories of single and concurrent substance use disorders. Such multi-substance trajectories represent meaningful subtypes that, although sharing substantial common influences, have unique etiologic correlates. Additionally, these subtypes might represent distinct groups from the perspective of intervention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fake IDs are highly prevalent among underage college students, and are strongly associated with heavy drinking. However it is not currently known how exactly fake IDs are most commonly obtained and used, and how often individuals are caught. Such information could aid law enforcement and school personnel in their enforcement responsibilities, and might further elucidate the extent and means by which students "make ethical compromises" to gain illegal access to alcohol. A cross-sectional online survey of 1098 underage students at a large Midwestern university indicated that comparable to previous findings, 21.0% reported possessing a fake ID (which was strongly associated with past-month frequent heavy drinking; OR=4.84, 95% CI=3.41-6.86). Of those with fake IDs, 93.5% reported having used them, and 29.1% reported having been caught. Greek (i.e., fraternity/sorority) members were more likely than others to obtain them through a Greek organization (OR=8.02, 95% CI=1.81-35.54). Also, men were more likely than women to buy (OR=2.74, 95% CI=1.57-4.77), yet less likely to be given them (OR=0.53, 95% CI=0.31-0.90). Future studies might examine whether and how fake ID capture reduces (or exacerbates) drinking over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), currently uses a polythetic classification system for defining alcohol use disorders (AUD; alcohol abuse and dependence). This classification results in individuals who are subthreshold for an official AUD diagnosis but still endorse one or two criteria of dependence: so-called "diagnostic orphans." To our knowledge, however, there has been no attention given to diagnostic orphans from a lifetime perspective. The goal of the current article was to compare various diagnostic groups based on lifetime reports of abuse and dependence symptoms on a range of outcomes.Method: Data taken from the National Epidemiological Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions study were used to form seven mutually exclusive diagnostic groups based on lifetime abuse and dependence symptomatology.Results: Diagnostic groups that experienced extensive dependence symptoms, regardless of past-12-month clustering (i.e., formal diagnostic criteria), tended to exhibit poorer outcomes compared with participants that met formal lifetime diagnosis for an AUD through abuse alone. It is notable that a significant group of individuals who failed to meet formal lifetime AUD diagnosis, but who endorsed a number of dependence symptoms, consistently demonstrated more problematic outcomes on a range of measures compared with individuals who never reported dependence symptoms but who were formally diagnosed with lifetime AUD through alcohol abuse.Conclusions: DSM-IV lifetime diagnostic criteria may exclude individuals with a history of extensive dependence symptomatology. Implications regarding lifetime diagnosis conceptualization are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective : To develop a shortened form of the Young Adult Alcohol Problems Screening Test 1 (YAAPST; original length = 27 items) using a novel combinatorial approach. Participants : 489 college freshmen, half of whom were above average risk for alcohol use disorder based upon family history, attending a large, Midwestern University followed prospectively for 16-17 years across 7 measurement occasions (waves). Methods : Using an exhaustive combinatorial approach, we evaluated all possible combinations of questions and questionnaire length. Each candidate short-form was evaluated using part-whole correlations, alpha coefficients, and polyserial correlations with DSM-III criteria. Results : The 12-item scale, the Brief-YAAPST, was chosen as the best candidate short-form as this scale had the fewest items while maintaining strong reliability and validity. Conclusions : Complete enumeration optimization effectively produced a 12-item short form with minimal loss of reliability and validity making the Brief-YAAPST a desirable assessment alternative when there are concerns about participant or client burden.

Objective: Epidemiologic surveys aim to estimate the population prevalence of cannabis use and cannabis use disorder. Prevalences estimates are important for understanding trends, such as the impact of policy change. Existing epidemiologic surveys have produced discrepant and potentially unreliable estimates. The current meta-analysis (PROSPERO CRD42022364818) aims to identify potential sources of unreliability in prevalence estimates of cannabis use and use disorder among the general population (aged 12+). There was no specific hypothesis about overall prevalence estimate, but we expected significant variability (i.e., heterogeneity) in estimates based on factors such as country, year of data collection, and specific methodological factors (e.g., diagnostic instrument)., Method: Systematic searches identified manuscripts and reports documenting nationally representative lifetime or past-year cannabis use disorder prevalence estimates. Meta-analysis was used to synthesize prevalence estimates, evaluate heterogeneity, and test moderators., Results: There were 39 manuscripts/reports included in analyses which resulted in 259 unique prevalence estimates spanning 1980-2013 and an aggregated sample size of 973,281 individuals. Past-year and lifetime prevalence estimates for cannabis use were 12.83% (95% CI: 11.15%, 14.71%) and 38.31% (95% CI: 35.92%, 40.76%) and those for cannabis use disorder were 2.59% (95% CI:2.30%, 2.90%) and 6.77% (95% CI: 4.89%, 9.30%), respectively. There was significant heterogeneity in estimates, which was partially explained by factors such as country, year of data collection, and methodological characteristics., Conclusions: The significant heterogeneity in prevalence estimates as a function of methodological characteristics raises concerns about the generalizability of estimates. Recommendations for enhancing validity and reliability of these estimates are offered.

Sipping, an early form of alcohol initiation, is associated with aspects of psychopathology and personality that reflect long-term risk for harmful alcohol use. In the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development cohort ( N = 11,872), sipping by age 9-10 was concurrently associated with impulsivity, other aspects of externalizing, and prodromal schizophrenia symptoms. Still, these associations were cross-sectional in nature, leaving open the possibility that these features of psychopathology and personality might not reflect long-term risk for alcohol consumption and related harm across development. Here, we attempted to replicate baseline concurrent associations across three waves of data to extend concurrent associations to prospective ones. Most cross-sectional associations replicated across waves, such that impulsivity, other aspects of externalizing, reward sensitivity (e.g., surgency, sensation seeking), and prodromal schizophrenia symptoms were associated with increased odds of having sipped alcohol by the age of 12. Nevertheless, not all concurrent associations replicated prospectively; impulsigenic features did not reflect long-term risk for sipping. Thus, some psychopathology features appeared to reflect stable risk factors, whereas others appeared to reflect state-dependent risk factors. All told, sipping might not reflect long-term risk for harmful alcohol use, and the nature of sipping may change across development.

As part of the special issue of Development and Psychopathology honoring the remarkable contributions of Dr Dante Cicchetti, the current paper attempts to describe the recent contributions that a developmental psychopathology perspective has made in understanding the development of alcohol use and alcohol-related problems over the lifespan. The paper also identifies some of the future challenges and research directions. Because the scope of this task far exceeds the confines of a journal length article this paper does not attempt a comprehensive review. Rather, it builds on an earlier review and commentary that was published in Development and Psychopathology in 2013, with a similar goal.)Building on that work and updating its conclusions and suggestions for future directions, the current paper emphasizes findings from the research areas that were identified for further study in 2013 and the findings that have been published since that time.

While prior literature has largely focused on marriage effects during young adulthood, it is less clear whether these effects are as strong in middle adulthood. Thus, we investigated age differences in marriage effects on problem-drinking reduction. We employed parallel analyses with two independent samples (analytic-sample N s of 577 and 441, respectively). Both are high-risk samples by design, with about 50% of participants having a parent with lifetime alcohol use disorder. Both samples have been assessed longitudinally from early young adulthood to the mid-to-late 30s. Separate parallel analyses with these two samples allowed evaluation of the reproducibility of results. Growth models of problem drinking tested marriage as a time-varying predictor and thereby assessed age differences in marriage effects. For both samples, results consistently showed marriage effects to be strongest in early young adulthood and to decrease somewhat monotonically thereafter with age, reaching very small (and nonsignificant) magnitudes by the 30s. Results may reflect that role transitions like marriage have more impact on problem drinking in earlier versus later adulthood, thereby highlighting the importance of life span developmental research for understanding problem-drinking desistance. Our findings can inform intervention strategies aimed at reducing problem drinking by jumpstarting or amplifying natural processes of adult role adaptation.

Several dimensional frameworks for characterizing heterogeneity in alcohol use disorder (AUD) have been proposed, including the Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment (ANA). The ANA is a framework for assessing individual variability within AUD across three domains corresponding to the proposed stages of the addiction cycle: reward (binge-intoxication stage), negative emotionality (withdrawal-negative affect stage), and cognitive control (preoccupation-anticipation stage). Recent work has evaluated the ANA's three-factor structure and construct validity, primarily in treatment-seekers with AUD. We extended this research by examining the factor structure, bias across alcohol use severity, longitudinal invariance, and concurrent and predictive validity of a novel assessment of the ANA domains in adults with past 12-month regular (10 + alcohol units/week) alcohol use. Participants recruited from Prolific ( N = 732), a crowdsourced data collection platform, completed various self-report measures. A test-retest subsample ( n = 234) completed these measures 30 days later. Split-half exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-factor structure of the ANA. The overall factor structure was invariant across 30 days. Concurrently and prospectively, ANA domains demonstrated convergent validity concerning theoretically aligned alcohol-related, psychological, and personality measures. However, there was evidence of poor discriminant validity, and several cognitive control and reward items demonstrated bias across alcohol use severity. Future research is needed to improve the measurement of ANA domains using multimodal indicators, examine longitudinal changes in domains and their relationship with alcohol use severity, characterize phenotypic subgroups based on relative levels of domains, and compare the utility of the ANA with other proposed frameworks for measuring AUD heterogeneity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Given the prevalence of alcohol and cannabis co-use among college students, prevention for co-use is crucial. We examined hypothetical receptiveness to substance-specific interventions among students who reported co-use. Students who use alcohol and cannabis were more receptive to alcohol interventions than cannabis interventions. Campus prevention experts should consider offering evidence-based alcohol-focused interventions as a potential pathway for decreasing substance use among college students who engage in co-use., Competing Interests: Disclosure Statement: There are no disclosures or conflicts of interest to report.

Background: Symptoms often play an important role in the scientific inquiry of psychological disorders and have been theorized to play a functional role in the disorders themselves. However, little is known about the course of specific symptoms and individual differences in course. Understanding the course of specific symptoms and factors influencing symptom course can inform psychological theory and future research on course and treatment., Methods: The current study examined alcohol use disorder (AUD) criteria to explore how etiologically relevant covariates differentially affected the course of individual criteria. The study examined 34,653 participants from Wave 1 (2001-2002) and Wave 2 (2003-2004) of the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), to analyze the extent to which AUD symptom course is predicted by alcohol consumption patterns, family history of alcoholism, the presence of internalizing and externalizing disorders, and race., Results: The course of all AUD criteria was significantly influenced by these predictors, with the magnitude of the influence varying across different criteria and different aspects of the course (i.e., onset, persistence, recurrence). The strength of the relationship is partially related to the theoretical proximity of a given covariate to AUD symptomatology, with heavy drinking being the strongest and family history of AUD being the weakest. The course of all criteria was strongly associated with the prevalence of the criterion in the overall sample., Conclusions: The course of AUD criteria is heterogeneous, appearing to be influenced by conceptually proximal predictors, the prevalence of the criterion, and perhaps an underlying common factor. Diagnostic accuracy may be improved by including a criterion related to alcohol consumption. Future work should include exploring the interchangeability of criteria and alternative operationalization of them., (© 2023 Research Society on Alcohol.)

Background and Aims: Alcohol use disorder is comorbid with numerous other forms of psychopathology, including externalizing disorders (e.g. conduct disorder) and, to a lesser extent, internalizing conditions (e.g. depression, anxiety). Much of the time, overlap among alcohol use disorder and other conditions is explored at the disorder level, assuming that criteria are co-equal indicators of other psychopathology, even though alcohol use disorder criteria span numerous varied domains. Emerging evidence suggests that there are symptom clusters within the construct of alcohol use disorder that relate differentially with important external criteria, including psychopathology and allied personality traits (e.g. impulsivity, novelty-seeking). The present study mapped individual alcohol use disorder criteria onto internalizing and externalizing dimensions., Design and Participants: We used multivariate and factor analytical modeling and data from two large nationally representative samples of past year drinkers (n = 25 604; 19 454)., Setting: United States., Measurements: Psychopathology was assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule, yielding alcohol use disorder criteria, internalizing diagnoses (i.e. major depressive disorder, dysthymia, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobia, agoraphobia and panic disorder) and externalizing diagnoses and symptoms (i.e. antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder and three impulsivity items drawn from borderline personality disorder criteria). Alcohol consumption was assessed in terms of past-year drinking frequency, usual amount of alcohol consumed on drinking days, binge drinking frequency, intoxication frequency, and maximum number of drinks in a 24-hour period., Findings: Four different patterns emerged. First, several alcohol use disorder criteria were relatively weakly associated with externalizing and internalizing. Secondly, withdrawal was associated with internalizing, but this association was not specific to distress. Thirdly, there was a general lack of specificity between alcohol use disorder criteria and narrower forms of internalizing, despite what might be predicted by modern models of addiction. Fourthly, recurrent use in hazardous situations reflected higher degrees of externalizing and lower internalizing liability., Conclusions: Different symptom combinations appear to yield differential expressions of alcohol use disorder that are disorder-specific, or reflect broader tendencies toward externalizing, internalizing or both., (© 2023 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Older adult drinking poses a growing public health concern, especially given the ongoing aging of the United States population. As part of a larger lifespan developmental project contrasting predictors of drinking reductions across different periods of adulthood, we tested age differences in effects of health problems on drinking declines across young adulthood, midlife, and older adulthood. We predicted these effects to be developmentally specific to midlife and older adulthood. We also tested moderation by alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptomatology and by indices of sociodemographic disadvantage (sex and race/ethnicity). Analyses used data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), leveraging NESARC's vast age range (18-90 + ; N = 43,093) and two waves of longitudinal data. Multiple-group cross-lag models tested differences across age groups in cross-lag paths between health problems and alcohol consumption. As hypothesized, health problem effects on drinking reductions were developmentally specific to midlife and older adulthood. However, models testing moderation by AUD symptomatology showed that these adaptive effects of health problems on drinking reductions did not extend to those with one or more AUD symptoms. Little evidence was found for moderation by sex or race/ethnicity. Findings support the notion of health concerns as a pathway to drinking reduction that increases in importance across the adult lifespan. However, given the moderation by AUD symptoms, findings also highlight a need to understand barriers to health-related pathways to drinking reduction among relatively severe midlife and older adult drinkers. These findings hold implications for lifespan developmental tailoring of clinical, public health, and policy interventions., (© 2023. Society for Prevention Research.)

In this article, I describe why I believe the study of alcohol use and its consequences is a rich and rewarding area of scholarly activity that touches on multiple disciplines in the life sciences, the behavioral sciences, and the humanities. I then detail the circuitous path I took to become an alcohol researcher and the various challenges I encountered when starting up my research program at the University of Missouri. A major theme of my journey has been my good fortune encountering generous, brilliant scholars who took an interest in me and my career and who helped guide and assist me over the course of my career. I also highlight selected, other professional activities I've been involved in, focusing on editorial work, quality assurance, and governance of professional societies. While the focus is on my training and work as a psychologist, the overarching theme is the interpersonal context that nurtures careers.

Objective: Level of response (LOR) to alcohol is associated with several alcohol-related risk factors and outcomes. However, existing self-report measures of LOR have important limitations. For example, the Self-Rating of the Effects of Alcohol Scale assesses a limited range of alcohol-related effects. Although the Alcohol Sensitivity Questionnaire (ASQ) samples a broader range of effects, it uses different probes across effects, confounding type of effect with method variation associated with the use of different probes. Focusing on the ASQ, we systematically evaluate variation in estimated LOR as a function of how number of drinks to achieve an effect is probed. Our approach addresses a major limitation of existing LOR measures which fail to account for sensitivity variability across drinking occasions., Method: This study randomized 732 adult drinkers into one of four versions of the ASQ that assessed sensitivity to 15 alcohol-related effects, systematically varying the follow-up probes., Results: Accounting for (a) the minimum number of drinks consumed before feeling an effect and (b) the maximum number of drinks consumed without feeling an effect for all effects is superior to the original ASQ approach in predicting relevant outcomes., Conclusions: Assessments of sensitivity should probe for minimum and maximum number of drinks across each of the effects. If impractical to probe for both, consistently probing for maximum number of drinks is desirable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is an etiologically heterogeneous psychiatric disorder defined by a collection of commonly observed co-occurring symptoms. It is useful to contextualize AUD within theoretical frameworks to identify potential prevention, intervention, and treatment approaches that target personalized mechanisms of behavior change. One theoretical framework, behavioral economics, suggests that AUD is a temporally extended pattern of cost/benefit analyses favoring drinking decisions. The distribution of costs and benefits across choice outcomes is often unequally distributed over time and has different probabilities of receipt, such that delay and probability become critical variables. The present study examines the relations between different forms of economic discounting (delayed reward, delayed cost, and probabilistic reward) and individual symptoms of AUD to inform etiological models., Method: Participants ( N = 732; 41% female, 4.2% Black, 88.1% White, 8% Hispanic) completed an online survey with measures of AUD symptoms and economic discounting. We examined relations between economic discounting and AUD symptoms with zero-order correlations, in separate models (factor models), and in models controlling for an AUD factor (factor-controlled models)., Results: Delayed reward discounting was positively associated with the give up AUD criteria across all three levels of analysis. Probability discounting was associated with social/interpersonal problems across two out of three sets of analyses. Consistent with the broad discounting literature, effect sizes were small (range = -.15 to .13)., Conclusions: These results support the idea that AUD criteria are etiologically distinct, resulting in varying AUD profiles between persons that are differentially associated with behavioral economic discounting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The present paper highlights how alcohol use disorder (AUD) conceptualizations and resulting diagnostic criteria have evolved over time in correspondence with interconnected sociopolitical influences in the United States. We highlight four illustrative examples of how DSM-defined alcoholism, abuse/dependence, and AUD have been influenced by sociopolitical factors. In doing so, we emphasize the importance of recognizing and understanding such sociopolitical factors in the application of AUD diagnoses. Last, we offer a roadmap to direct the process of future efforts toward the improved diagnosis of AUD, with an emphasis on pursuing falsifiability, acknowledging researchers' assumptions about human behavior, and collaborating across subfields. Such efforts that center the numerous mechanisms and functions of behavior, rather than signs or symptoms, have the potential to minimize sociopolitical influences in the development of diagnostic criteria and maximize the treatment utility of diagnoses.

Influential psychological theories hypothesize that people consume alcohol in response to the experience of both negative and positive emotions. Despite two decades of daily diary and ecological momentary assessment research, it remains unclear whether people consume more alcohol on days they experience higher negative and positive affect in everyday life. In this preregistered meta-analysis, we synthesized the evidence for these daily associations between affect and alcohol use. We included individual participant data from 69 studies ( N = 12,394), which used daily and momentary surveys to assess affect and the number of alcoholic drinks consumed. Results indicate that people are not more likely to drink on days they experience high negative affect, but are more likely to drink and drink heavily on days high in positive affect. People self-reporting a motivational tendency to drink-to-cope and drink-to-enhance consumed more alcohol, but not on days they experienced higher negative and positive affect. Results were robust across different operationalizations of affect, study designs, study populations, and individual characteristics. These findings challenge the long-held belief that people drink more alcohol following increases in negative affect. Integrating these findings under different theoretical models and limitations of this field of research, we collectively propose an agenda for future research to explore open questions surrounding affect and alcohol use., Competing Interests: Competing interests: Authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Objective: Personalized feedback interventions are effective in reducing alcohol consumption and related problems. However, little is known about the role of choice in outcomes. The current study sought to (a) characterize individuals who opt in for brief alcohol-related feedback, (b) assess participants' consistency in that choice over two time points, and (c) evaluate changes in peak alcohol consumption among those who did and did not receive feedback., Method: Participants reporting past-12-month alcohol consumption were recruited through Prolific. At the outset of the survey, participants were asked if they would like to receive feedback on their drinking at the end of the survey ("opt in"). Participants at Time 1 (T1; N = 732) were 41% female, 91% White, and 8% Hispanic (mean age = 36, SD = 12.25, range: 18-80). A subset was invited back for a 30-day retest (Time 2 [T2]; n = 234)., Results: Those reporting higher maximum drinks and more drug use were more likely to opt in to feedback than those with lower use. Further, 85% of participants were consistent in their choice of whether to receive feedback across T1 and T2 (κ = .65). Among heavy drinking participants with T1 and T2 data ( n = 163), there was an effect of feedback on intensity of consumption at T2., Conclusions: Individuals who engage in heavy alcohol use are more likely to opt in to personalized alcohol feedback, and most do so consistently. Among heavy drinkers, feedback at T1 reduced intensity of consumption at T2, but the effect was small and requires future replication in more diverse samples.

Modern theoretical models of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) highlight the different functional roles played by various mechanisms associated with different symptoms. Symptom network models (SNMs) offer one approach to modeling AUD symptomatology in a way that could reflect these processes and provide important information on the progression and persistence of disorder. However, much of the research conducted using SNMs relies on cross-sectional data, which has raised questions regarding the extent they reflect dynamic processes. The current study aimed to (a) examine symptom networks of AUD and (b) compare the extent to which cross-sectional network models had similar structures and interpretations as longitudinal network models. 17,360 participants from Wave 1 (2001-2002) and Wave 2 (2003-2004) of the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) were used to model cross-sectional and longitudinal AUD symptom networks. The cross-sectional analyses demonstrate high replicability across waves and central symptoms consistent with other cross-sectional studies on addiction networks. The longitudinal network shared much less similarity than the cross-sectional networks and had a substantially different structure. Given the increasing attention given to the network perspective in psychopathology research, the results of this study raise concerns about interpreting cross-sectional symptom networks as representative of temporal changes occurring within a psychological disorder. We conclude that the psychological symptom network literature should be bolstered with additional research on longitudinal network models., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

We used multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) modeling to examine general factors of psychopathology in three samples of youth ( N s = 2119, 303, 592) for whom three informants reported on the youth's psychopathology (e.g., child, parent, teacher). Empirical support for the p -factor diminished in multi-informant models compared with mono-informant models: the correlation between externalizing and internalizing factors decreased and the general factor in bifactor models essentially reflected externalizing. Widely used MTMM-informed approaches for modeling multi-informant data cannot distinguish between competing interpretations of the patterns of effects we observed, including that the p -factor reflects, in part, evaluative consistency bias or that psychopathology manifests differently across contexts (e.g., home vs. school). Ultimately, support for the p -factor may be stronger in mono-informant designs, although it is does not entirely vanish in multi-informant models. Instead, the general factor of psychopathology in any given mono-informant model likely reflects a complex mix of variances, some substantive and some methodological.

Background: Although a relatively large body of research has identified multiple factors associated with adolescent substance use, less is known about earlier substance-related factors during preadolescence, including curiosity to use substances. The present study examined individual-, peer-, and parent-level domains pertaining to substance use and how these domains vary by sociodemographic subgroups and substance type., Methods: Participants were 11,864 9- and 10-year-olds from the baseline sample of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. Youth-reported measures were curiosity to use substances and perceived peer substance use. Parent-reported measures were availability of and rules about substances. Generalized logistic mixed models (GLMM) were used to compare these measures across alcohol, nicotine, and marijuana and across sociodemographic subgroupings (sex, race/ethnicity, household income, and family history of alcohol problems). GLMM was then used to examine predictors of curiosity to use by substance type., Results: The most striking descriptive differences were found between race/ethnicity and income categories (e.g., positive associations between greater income and greater availability of alcohol). In multivariable analyses, greater curiosity to use alcohol was associated with being male, higher household income, perceived peer alcohol use, and easy alcohol availability; greater curiosity to use nicotine was associated with being male, perceived peer cigarette use, easy availability of cigarettes, and no parental rules about cigarette use., Conclusions: This study identified substance use-related individual-, peer-, and parent-level factors among a diverse, national sample. Findings highlight the importance of considering sociodemographic and substance-specific variability and may help identify risk and protective factors preceding adolescent substance use., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest: No conflicts declared

Background: Previous research has established that certain features of personality (e.g., impulsivity), psychopathology (e.g., impulsivity, mood disorder, thought disorder), and contextual factors (e.g., parenting, parental alcohol use) are associated with an increased likelihood of having sipped alcohol in youth, and substance involvement and problems in adolescence and adulthood. What is less clear from the existing literature is whether well-established risk factors of substance use are consistent across sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, religious affiliation, income, parental education)., Methods: We used a large, community sample of 9- and 10-year-olds (N = 11,872; 53% female) to examine whether various sociodemographic characteristics moderate the associations between sipping behavior and its various well-established correlates (e.g., impulsivity, behavioral inhibition and activation, psychopathology, parenting, and family conflict)., Results: There were small mean level differences in sipping across sociodemographic characteristics. Across sociodemographic characteristics, however, sipping was fairly uniformly associated with youth-reported impulsivity, behavioral activation, prodromal psychosis symptoms, mood and externalizing disorder diagnoses, family environment, and parental alcohol consumption indices. Effects were sometimes slightly more pronounced among groups for which alcohol consumption is relatively nonnormative: Sipping among female youth was slightly more associated with thought disorder psychopathology than among male youth (D = 0.07), and was slightly more associated with some aspects of psychopathology and impulsivity for Black youth than White and Hispanic youth (Ds were 0.07 and 0.09)., Conclusions: Broadly, our findings suggest that the psychosocial correlates of precocious alcohol use are relatively consistent across sociodemographic factors., (© 2022 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.)

Objective: Addressing high-risk alcohol and cannabis use represent major challenges to institutions of higher education. A range of evidence-based treatment approaches are available, but little is known concerning students' receptiveness to such approaches. Prior work identified that students were most open to individual therapy and self-help options for reducing alcohol use, but less open to medication. The current study examines student receptiveness to intervention approaches across a wider range of intervention approaches (e.g., remote/telehealth), and extends to evaluate cannabis intervention receptiveness., Method: Undergraduate students reported on alcohol and cannabis use, motives for and reasons against use, and openness to an array of interventions for reducing alcohol and cannabis use., Results: Informal options (self-help, talking with family/friends), individual therapy, and appointments with a primary care provider (PCP) were endorsed most frequently. Group therapy and medication were less commonly endorsed, though medication was endorsed at a higher prevalence than in prior studies. Women generally expressed higher receptiveness than men. Lower alcohol consumption was associated with increased receptiveness to some approaches. Students at high risk for alcohol and/or cannabis dependence were less receptive to many treatment options., Conclusions: College students were open to a wide variety of approaches for reducing their alcohol and cannabis use. These results can inform selection, implementation, and availability of campus-wide services, especially as low-cost technological-based approaches are expanding. Further attention to existing services (e.g., PCP) for addressing alcohol and cannabis use may be considered, given students' receptiveness to such approaches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Childhood psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are associated with a range of impairments; a subset of children experiencing PLEs will develop psychiatric disorders, including psychotic disorders. A potential distinguishing factor between benign PLEs versus PLEs that are clinically relevant is whether PLEs are distressing and/or persistent. The current study used three waves of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ (ABCD) study PLEs assessments to examine the extent to which persistent and/or distressing PLEs were associated with relevant baseline risk factors (e.g., cognition) and functioning/mental health service utilization domains. Four groups varying in PLE persistence and distress endorsement were created based on all available data in ABCD Release 3.0, with group membership not contingent on complete data: persistent distressing PLEs (n = 272), transient distressing PLEs (n = 298), persistent non-distressing PLEs (n = 221), and transient non-distressing PLEs (n = 536) groups. Using hierarchical linear models, results indicated youth with distressing PLEs, whether transient or persistent, showed delayed developmental milestones (β = 0.074, 95%CI:0.013,0.134) and altered structural MRI metrics (β = -0.0525, 95%CI:-0.100,-0.005). Importantly, distress interacted with PLEs persistence for the domains of functioning/mental health service utilization (β = 0.079, 95%CI:0.016,0.141), other reported psychopathology (β = 0.101, 95%CI:0.030,0.170), cognition (β = -0.052, 95%CI:0.-0.099,-0.002), and environmental adversity (β = 0.045, 95%CI:0.003,0.0.86; although no family history effects), with the interaction characterized by greatest impairment in the persistent distressing PLEs group. These results have implications for disentangling the importance of distress and persistence for PLEs with regards to impairments, including functional, pathophysiological, and environmental outcomes. These novel longitudinal data underscore that it is often only in the context of distress that persistent PLEs were related to impairments., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Background: Emerging adulthood is a critical neurodevelopmental stage, with alcohol use during this period consistently associated with brain abnormalities and damage in anatomical structure and white matter integrity. However, it is less clear how alcohol use is associated with the brain's structural organization (i.e., white matter connections between anatomical regions). Recent connectome research has focused on rich-club regions, a collection of highly-interconnected hubs that are critical in brain communication and global network organization and disproportionately vulnerable to insults., Methods: For the first time, we examined alcohol use associations with structural rich-club and connectome organization in emerging adults (N = 66)., Results: Greater lifetime drinks and current monthly drinks were significantly associated with lower rich-club organization (r s =-0.38, ps < 0.003) and lower rich-club connectivity (r s <-0.34, ps < 0.007). Additionally, rich-club connectivity was significantly more negatively correlated with alcohol use than connectivity among non-rich-club regions (ps < 0.035). Examining overall structural organization, greater lifetime drinks and current monthly drinks were significantly associated with lower network density (i.e., lower network resilience; r s <-0.36, ps = 0.004). Additionally, greater lifetime drinks and current monthly drinks were significantly associated with higher network segregation (i.e., network's tendency to divide into subnetworks; r s >0.33, ps<0.008). Alcohol use was not significantly associated with network integration (i.e., network's efficiency in combining information across the brain; ps > 0.064)., Conclusions: Results provide novel evidence that alcohol use is associated with decreased rich-club connectivity and structural network disorganization. Given that both are critical in global brain communication, these results highlight the importance of examining alcohol use and brain relationships in emerging adulthood., (Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background: Risky drinking among college campuses has been a long-standing concern and there have been dedicated efforts to develop evidence-based prevention and treatment strategies (EBSs) to decrease alcohol use and increase healthy behaviors among college students. Further, the College Alcohol Intervention Matrix (CollegeAIM) was developed as a tool with accompanying resources, to assist institutions of higher education in selecting EBSs that are appropriate and a good fit for their campuses. However, the CollegeAIM tool and selection of prevention strategies from stakeholders' perspectives has yet to be evaluated. This study protocol describes the methodology for a research project evaluating CollegeAIM from an implementation science perspective using the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment framework., Methods: The aims of this study will be accomplished with a mixed-method design comprised of reviews of strategic planning documents, quantitative surveys and interviews with prevention experts, and focus groups to identify key components of a decision-support program for prevention experts to support the use of CollegeAIM. Participants are members of the multi-site Missouri Partners in Prevention coalition to reduce risky substance use on college campuses across the state., Discussion: The results of this study will provide key information to support the development of additional supportive tools for campuses that can improve their selection and implementation of EBSs that fit the needs of their respective campuses. This work is important to further advance the implementation and sustainment of extant EBSs for risky college alcohol use., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study of 11,880 youth incorporates a comprehensive range of measures assessing predictors and outcomes related to mental health across childhood and adolescence in participating youth, as well as information about family mental health history. We have previously described the logic and content of the mental health assessment battery at Baseline and 1-year follow-up. Here, we describe changes to that battery and issues and clarifications that have emerged, as well as additions to the mental health battery at the 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year follow-ups. We capitalize on the recent release of longitudinal data for caregiver and youth report of mental health data to evaluate trajectories of dimensions of psychopathology as a function of demographic factors. For both caregiver and self-reported mental health symptoms, males showed age-related decreases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms, while females showed an increase in internalizing symptoms with age. Multiple indicators of socioeconomic status (caregiver education, family income, financial adversity, neighborhood poverty) accounted for unique variance in both caregiver and youth-reported externalizing and internalizing symptoms. These data highlight the importance of examining developmental trajectories of mental health as a function of key factors such as sex and socioeconomic environment., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Aims: To examine the acute effects of alcohol on working memory (WM) updating, including potential variation across the ascending limb (AL) and descending limb (DL) of the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) time-course., Design: A two-session experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to one of three beverage conditions [alcohol (males: 0.80 g/kg; females: 0.72 g/kg), active placebo (0.04 g/kg) or non-alcohol control (tonic)] and one of two BAC limb testing conditions (AL and DL or DL-only) for the second session, yielding a 3 (beverage) × 2 (time-points tested) × 3 (time-point) mixed factorial design with repeated measures on the latter factor. One of the repeated assessments is 'missing by design' in the DL-only condition., Setting: A psychology laboratory at the University of Missouri campus in Columbia, MO, USA., Participants: Two hundred thirty-one community-dwelling young adults (51% female; aged 21-34 years) recruited from Columbia, MO, USA, tested between 2011 and 2013., Measurements: Latent WM updating performance as indexed by shared variance in accuracy on three WM updating tasks (letter memory, keep track, spatial 2-back) at three time-points., Findings: Multi-group modeling of latent WM updating indicated that performance among participants who consumed placebo or control beverages improved during the second session at time-points corresponding to AL (∆ from baseline in latent mean ± standard error (SE) + 0.5 ± 0.01, P < 0.001) and DL (+ 0.08 ± 0.01, P < 0.001). Alcohol consumption did not impair WM updating (∆ from baseline in latent mean ± SE, at AL: + 0.01 ± 0.01, P = 0.56; at DL: + 0.05 ± 0.01, P < 0.001), but attenuated performance improvements (equality of latent means across beverage groups at AL or DL: Δχ 2 (1)  ≥ 7.53, P < 0.01)., Conclusions: Acute alcohol-induced impairment in working memory updating may be limited, but dampening of practice effects by alcohol could interfere with the completion of novel, unpracticed tasks., (© 2021 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Modern nosologies (e.g., ICD-11, DSM-5) for alcohol use disorder (AUD) and dependence prioritize reliability and clinical presentation over etiology, resulting in a diagnosis that is not always strongly grounded in basic theory and research. Within these nosologies, DSM-5 AUD is treated as a discrete, largely categorical, but graded, phenomenon, which results in additional challenges (e.g., significant phenotypic heterogeneity). Efforts to increase the compatibility between AUD diagnosis and modern conceptualizations of alcohol dependence, which describe it as dimensional and partially overlapping with other psychopathology (e.g., other substance use disorders) will inspire a stronger scientific framework and strengthen AUD's validity. We conducted a systematic review of 144 reviews to integrate addiction constructs and theories into a comprehensive framework with the aim of identifying fundamental mechanisms implicated in AUD. The product of this effort was the Etiologic, Theory-Based, Ontogenetic Hierarchical Framework (ETOH Framework) of AUD mechanisms, which outlines superdomains of cognitive control, reward, as well as negative valence and emotionality, each of which subsume narrower, hierarchically-organized components. We also outline opponent processes and self-awareness as key moderators of AUD mechanisms. In contrast with other frameworks, we recommend an increased conceptual role for negative valence and compulsion in AUD. The ETOH framework serves as a critical step towards conceptualizations of AUD as dimensional and heterogeneous. It has the potential to improve AUD assessment and aid in the development of evidence-based diagnostic measures that focus on key mechanisms in AUD, consequently facilitating treatment matching.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is the largest single-cohort prospective longitudinal study of neurodevelopment and children's health in the United States. A cohort of n = 11,880 children aged 9-10 years (and their parents/guardians) were recruited across 22 sites and are being followed with in-person visits on an annual basis for at least 10 years. The study approximates the US population on several key sociodemographic variables, including sex, race, ethnicity, household income, and parental education. Data collected include assessments of health, mental health, substance use, culture and environment and neurocognition, as well as geocoded exposures, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and whole-genome genotyping. Here, we describe the ABCD Study aims and design, as well as issues surrounding estimation of meaningful associations using its data, including population inferences, hypothesis testing, power and precision, control of covariates, interpretation of associations, and recommended best practices for reproducible research, analytical procedures and reporting of results., (Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Prior research has shown that sipping of alcohol begins to emerge during childhood and is potentially etiologically significant for later substance use problems. Using a large, community sample of 9- and 10-year-olds (N = 11,872; 53% female), we examined individual differences in precocious alcohol use in the form of alcohol sipping. We focused explicitly on features that are robust and well-demonstrated correlates of, and antecedents to, alcohol excess and related problems later in the lifespan, including youth- and parent-reported externalizing traits (i.e., impulsivity, behavioral inhibition and activation) and psychopathology. Seventeen percent of the sample reported sipping alcohol outside of a religiously sanctioned activity by age 9 or 10. Several aspects of psychopathology and personality emerged as small but reliable correlates of sipping. Nonreligious sipping was related to youth-reported impulsigenic traits, aspects of behavioral activation, prodromal psychotic-like symptoms, and mood disorder diagnoses, as well as parent-reported externalizing disorder diagnoses. Religious sipping was unexpectedly associated with certain aspects of impulsivity. Together, our findings point to the potential importance of impulsivity and other transdiagnostic indicators of psychopathology (e.g., emotion dysregulation, novelty seeking) in the earliest forms of drinking behavior.

Background: The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ™ Study (ABCD Study®) is an open-science, multi-site, prospective, longitudinal study following over 11,800 9- and 10-year-old youth into early adulthood. The ABCD Study aims to prospectively examine the impact of substance use (SU) on neurocognitive and health outcomes. Although SU initiation typically occurs during teen years, relatively little is known about patterns of SU in children younger than 12., Methods: This study aims to report the detailed ABCD Study® SU patterns at baseline (n = 11,875) in order to inform the greater scientific community about cohort's early SU. Along with a detailed description of SU, we ran mixed effects regression models to examine the association between early caffeine and alcohol sipping with demographic factors, externalizing symptoms and parental history of alcohol and substance use disorders (AUD/SUD)., Primary Results: At baseline, the majority of youth had used caffeine (67.6 %) and 22.5 % reported sipping alcohol (22.5 %). There was little to no reported use of other drug categories (0.2 % full alcohol drink, 0.7 % used nicotine, <0.1 % used any other drug of abuse). Analyses revealed that total caffeine use and early alcohol sipping were associated with demographic variables (p's<.05), externalizing symptoms (caffeine p = 0002; sipping p = .0003), and parental history of AUD (sipping p = .03)., Conclusions: ABCD Study participants aged 9-10 years old reported caffeine use and alcohol sipping experimentation, but very rare other SU. Variables linked with early childhood alcohol sipping and caffeine use should be examined as contributing factors in future longitudinal analyses examining escalating trajectories of SU in the ABCD Study cohort., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Given the high comorbidity among psychological disorders, and in particular, personality disorders (PDs) and alcohol use disorder, screening and intervention efforts may benefit from the inclusion of transdiagnostic symptoms. Extant symptoms can improve the ability to efficiently gather important information about an individual that relates to a number of conditions, behaviors, and potential problems. Further, less time is needed to assess these symptoms, as compared with full diagnostic criteria sets, which have limitations of their own. This study examined the utility of two PD symptoms, affective instability and impulsivity, as compared with relevant categorical diagnoses (antisocial and borderline PDs), to provide useful information about alcohol use disorder and heaviness of alcohol consumption. Individual symptoms were comparable to the categorical diagnoses in predicting important treatment targets. In an effort to identify and treat comorbidities in a more efficient way, future research should investigate the applicability of these individual symptoms, and other transdiagnostic targets, to screening and brief intervention protocols. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study ® is a 10-year longitudinal study of children recruited at ages 9 and 10. A battery of neuroimaging tasks are administered biennially to track neurodevelopment and identify individual differences in brain function. This study reports activation patterns from functional MRI (fMRI) tasks completed at baseline, which were designed to measure cognitive impulse control with a stop signal task (SST; N = 5,547), reward anticipation and receipt with a monetary incentive delay (MID) task (N = 6,657) and working memory and emotion reactivity with an emotional N-back (EN-back) task (N = 6,009). Further, we report the spatial reproducibility of activation patterns by assessing between-group vertex/voxelwise correlations of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activation. Analyses reveal robust brain activations that are consistent with the published literature, vary across fMRI tasks/contrasts and slightly correlate with individual behavioral performance on the tasks. These results establish the preadolescent brain function baseline, guide interpretation of cross-sectional analyses and will enable the investigation of longitudinal changes during adolescent development., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.)

Objective: Negative affect (NA) is presumed to be an important trigger for drinking, particularly among coping-motivated drinkers. However, diary studies attempting to predict alcohol use from interactions between state NA and coping motives have proved inconsistent. Craving or momentary desire for alcohol may be a more proximal and robust consequence of NA in coping-motivated drinkers., Method: Data were drawn from an ecological momentary assessment investigation. Frequent drinkers ( N = 403) carried electronic diaries for 21 consecutive days, recording their drinking behavior, and rating cravings for alcohol and NA., Results: Outside of active drinking episodes, within-person elevations of momentary NA were associated with increased craving intensity, and this effect was more prominent among drinkers with higher dispositional coping motives. There was no significant interaction between coping motives and momentary NA in predicting the occurrence and amount of same-day alcohol use. Significant conditional indirect effects indicated that NA promoted drinking through increases in craving. These indirect effects were stronger among drinkers reporting higher coping motives., Conclusions: Coping motives and within-person fluctuations in NA interactively predict alcohol craving. NA promotes drinking indirectly via increased craving, particularly among coping-motivated drinkers. Alcohol craving may be a proximal and sensitive response channel for investigating interactions between affective distress and coping motives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Mental disorders are complex, multifaceted phenomena that are associated with profound heterogeneity and comorbidity. Despite the heterogeneity of mental disorders, most are generally considered unitary dimensions. We argue that certain measurement practices, especially using too few indicators per construct, preclude the detection of meaningful multidimensionality. We demonstrate the implications of crude measurement for detecting construct multidimensionality with alcohol use disorder (AUD). To do so, we used a large sample of college heavy drinkers (N = 909) for whom AUD symptomology was thoroughly assessed (87 items) and a blend of confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and hierarchical clustering. A unidimensional AUD model with one item per symptom criterion fit the data well, whereas a unidimensional model with all items fit the data poorly. Starting with an 11-item AUD model, model fit decreased and the variability in factor loadings increased as additional items were added to the model. Additionally, multidimensional models outperformed unidimensional ones in terms of variance explained in theoretically relevant external criteria. All told, we converged on a hierarchically organized model of AUD with three broad, transcriterial dimensions that reflected tolerance, withdrawal, and loss of control. In addition to introducing a hierarchical model of AUD, we propose that thorough assessment of psychological constructs paired with serious consideration of alternative, multidimensional structures can move past the deadlock of their unidimensional representations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Recent studies have examined the extent to which alcohol dependence (AD) criteria prospectively predict the course of AD. Critically, these studies have lacked a developmental perspective. However, the differential performance of criteria by age might indicate overendorsement in younger individuals. The current study examined AD criteria in terms of persistence and prediction of AD course and alcohol use by age in order to identify criteria that are likely to be overly endorsed by younger individuals., Method: The current study used longitudinal data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions to depict age differences in rates of new onset, recurrence, and persistence for each AD criterion, thereby showing how these three factors contribute to the overall age-prevalence curve of each criterion. Additionally, we tested age moderation of the predictive association between each criterion at baseline and new onset, recurrence, and persistence of syndromal AD., Results: Some criteria (particularly, persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control drinking, and drinking despite physical/psychological problems) are both less persistent and less predictive of AD course among younger adults compared to older adults., Conclusions: These findings raise the possibility of elevated rates of false-positive AD among younger adults and suggest ways to improve the assessment of AD criteria. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Background: How personality traits, anxiety, and depressive disorders relate longitudinally has implications for etiologic research and prevention. We sought to determine how neuroticism and extraversion relate to first-onset anxiety and depressive disorders in young adults., Design: An inception cohort of 489 university freshmen was followed for 6 years., Method: Participants self-reported personality traits using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Anxiety and depressive disorders were assessed using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule., Results: Baseline neuroticism predicted first-onset panic disorder, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and major depressive disorder (MDD), while introversion predicted first-onset agoraphobia (moderate-large effects). Participants who developed panic disorder, agoraphobia, GAD, or MDD had increases in neuroticism if the disorder was current at follow-up (moderate-large effects). Participants who developed MDD but were in remission by follow-up had a moderate increase in neuroticism., Conclusions: High neuroticism in young adulthood is either a true risk factor, or marker of risk, for first-onset anxiety and depressive disorders, as is low extraversion for agoraphobia. The current data suggest large neuroticism "state" effects for panic disorder, agoraphobia, and MDD, and moderate "scar" effects from MDD. Though many clinicians and researchers regard personality traits simply as "vulnerability" factors, longitudinal analyses suggest additional complexity.