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This study had three aims: (1) to determine the relations between behavioral dysregulation, negative affectivity, and familial impairment with violence and suicidality (i.e., severity of ideation and attempts) in a sample of adolescent females with a psychoactive substance use disorder and controls; (2) to determine whether these relations are mediated by internalizing (depression/anxiety) and externalizing (nonviolent antisocial behavior) symptomatology; and (3) to determine whether severity of alcohol/drug use involvement moderates the relations between the mediating variables with violence and suicidality. Multiple behavioral, psychiatric interview, and self-report measures were used to index behavioral dysregulation, negative affectivity, familial impairment, internalizing and externalizing symptomatology, and violence and suicidality in one hundred sixty-one 14- to 18-year-old adolescent females with a psychoactive substance use disorder and in 80 controls. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the proposed relations. Results indicated that behavioral dysregulation, negative affectivity, and familial impairment were related to violence, whereas only familial impairment was related to suicidality. Internalizing symptomatology mediated the relation between familial impairment and suicidality, and was related to violence, whereas externalizing symptomatology mediated the relations between behavioral dysregulation, negative affectivity, and familial impairment with violence. Severity of alcohol/drug use involvement did not moderate the relations between internalizing or externalizing symptomatology with suicidality or violence. Nevertheless, the relation between internalizing symptomatology and suicidality was stronger in females with a greater degree of alcohol/drug use involvement, compared with those with a milder degree of involvement Therefore, from a prevention standpoint, behavioral dysregulation, negative affectivity, familial impairment, as well as internalizing and externalizing symptoms, may serve as clinical 'points of intervention' for altering the development of violence and suicidality in high risk and substance abusing youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to assess the relation between Executive Cognitive Functioning (ECF) and the adverse consequences of alcohol consumption. ECF encompasses 'higher order' cognitive abilities involved in goal-directed behavior, such as attentional control, mental flexibility, planning, and self-monitoring. Impaired ECF has been shown to result in a variety of negative consequences, including excessive drug and alcohol use. Subjects were 79 nonalcoholic male social drinkers between 17 to 30 years of age. ECF was measured using three neuropsychological tests: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), the Conditional Associative Learning Test (CAT), and the Sequential Matching Memory Test (SMMT). Adverse drinking consequences were measured using the Drinker Inventory of Consequences (DrlnC). The DrlnC assesses drinking consequences in five domains: Physical, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Social Responsibility, and Impulse Control. Scores from the neuropsychological tests were reduced into two latent variables: one representing the WCST and the other representing the CAT and SMMT. The results indicated that errors on the CAT/SMMT variable were positively related to adverse consequences in each domain, except for physical consequences. A similar association was found between the WCST variable and impulse control consequences. These findings indicate that performance on tests measuring ECF is related to the severity of drinking consequences. Therefore, prevention and treatment outcomes may be improved by incorporating cognitive habilitation into current interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the ability of executive cognitive functioning (ECF) to predict reactive aggression in boys at high and low risk for substance abuse using a 2-year prospective design. ECF is defined as the self-regulation of goal-directed behavior. Reactive aggression involves impulsive hostile reactions committed with little forethought. ECF was measured using five neuropsychological tests in 198 10- to 12-year-old boys with (SA+) and without (SA-) a paternal history of substance abuse/dependence. Reactive aggression was measured, 2 years later, using a composite index of items derived from two self-report measures. It was hypothesized that ECF would predict reactive aggression, and that this relation would be stronger for the SA+ compared with the SA- boys. SA+ subjects demonstrated lower ECF scores and higher reactive aggression scores, compared with SA- controls. ECF predicted reactive aggression in the SA+ group (β= 0.37, p= 0.001), but not in the SA- group (β= 0.09, p= NS). This suggests that compromised ECF may be a risk factor for reactive aggression in SA+ youth. The hypothesis that the relation between ECF and reactive aggression is a manifestation of a mild dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to compare the stress-response-dampening (SRD) effect of alcohol in hostile and nonhostile men based on a combined score of four subscales of the Cook-Medley Hostility Scale. Subjects were 72 male social drinkers. Subjects' cardiac interbeat-interval, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure reactivity to a situational stressor were measured following the consumption of either alcohol, no alcohol, or an active placebo beverage. Results demonstrated that hostile men evinced lower heart rate and systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity to the stressor when given alcohol, compared with intoxicated nonhostile subjects, and lower reactivity relative to all other groups, with the exception of SBP in the nonhostile controls. These results allow for speculation that hostile men may be more likely than controls to experience possible SRD effects of alcohol and thus, perhaps, be predisposed to increased alcohol consumption when under stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested the combined predictive ability of blood alcohol concentration (BAC), subjective intoxication, and aggressive personality traits on physical aggression in males and females in Highland Low-provocation conditions. Sixty intoxicated White social drinkers (30 males and 30 females) competed against a fictitious opponent on a modified version of the Taylor aggression paradigm in which subjects both received and delivered electric shocks to their opponents in provoking and nonprovoking conditions. Provocation conditions (High and Low) were defined by the intensity of the shocks the subjects received. Aggression was operationalized as the intensity of the shocks selected by the subjects. Results indicated that, for males in the High-provocation condition, aggressive personality traits, subjective intoxication, and BAC were effective predictors of physical aggression. However, in the Low-provocation condition, only aggressive personality traits and BAC predicted aggression. None of the variables were effective predictors of aggression for intoxicated females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists have attempted to account for the relationship between alcohol intoxication and a wide range of aggressive behaviors by ascribing alcohol-related aggression to the disinhibiting effects of alcohol and to its disruptive effects on cognitive processes. Allocation of attention and situational threat have been thought to mediate alcohol-related aggression. In the present study, 72 male social drinkers received either alcohol, a placebo, or a nonalcoholic beverage and were exposed to either threatening or nonthreatening personal information. Measuring levels and duration of aggressive responses on a Taylor-Buss aggression machine, intoxicated subjects were found to be generally more aggressive under threatening than under nonthreatening information conditions. Intoxicated subjects also reported relatively large increases in anger, depression, and tension following the aggression task, which appeared to be affected by the type of information received. These findings concur with and refine previous models suggesting that alcohol focuses the drinker's attention to salient cues in threatening circumstances, thus increasing the likelihood of aggressive behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects of alcohol and salience of social cues (personality traits) on allocation of attention in the intoxicated male social drinker. It was expected that inebriated subjects would preferentially attend to high threat relative to low threat information contingent on the information's personal relevance. Seventy-six participants received either alcohol or a placebo, or were in a control condition, and were given the opportunity to attend to personally salient or nonsalient positive, negative, and neutral information. Intoxicated participants viewed negative traits longer than did nonintoxicated subjects and attended to these traits longer in the salient than in the nonsalient condition. Findings are compared to the attention allocation model, and their implications for alcohol-mediated cognitive processes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]