Event-Level Risk for Negative Alcohol Consequences in Emerging Adults: The Role of Affect, Motivation, and Context.

Objective: Decades of research has found support for the motivational model of alcohol use at the between-person level, yet research on event-level drinking motives is in its nascent stage. Similarly, drinking context has been largely ignored in studies of day-level motives. Therefore, the present study sought to test whether drinking context mediates the relation between affect and motivation on drinking outcomes at both day and person levels. Method: Emerging adults who drank in solitary and social settings (N = 107; 61.2% female) completed 21 days ecological momentary assessments. Affect was assessed during morning/afternoon reports; drinking motives were assessed during afternoon reports; and past-night drinking context, drinking quantity, and negative consequences were assessed during next morning reports. Two-level multilevel structural equation models tested whether within-person and between-person levels of predrinking affect were indirectly associated with negative consequences through predrinking motives, drinking context (social vs. solitary), and drinking quantity. Results: At the day and person levels, positive affect was associated with higher social and enhancement motives. At the day level, positive affect indirectly predicted consequences through social motives, social (vs. solitary) drinking, and drinking quantity, whereas positive affect indirectly predicted consequences through enhancement motives and drinking quantity above and beyond context. At the day and person levels, negative affect was associated with coping motives, but coping was not associated with context, drinking quantity, nor consequences. Conclusions: Findings suggest that positive affect was linked to drinking outcomes through motives (enhancement and social) and contexts (social), whereas negative affect was not. Findings suggest that positively valenced drinking motives may be an important just-in-time intervention target. Public Health Significance Statement: Results suggested that both within-person deviations (and between-person levels) of social drinking motives as well as social drinking (at the within-person level in particular) were mechanisms of risk for alcohol misuse within a motivation framework. However, negative affect and coping motives were not. Findings add to skepticism related to negative reinforcement models of risk for addictive behavior in nonclinical samples and suggest that context and drinking motives may be important event- and person-level mechanisms to target in preventive interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]