Anxiety, expectancies, and negative mood regulation: Mechanisms governing alcohol use for tension-reduction in undergraduates

The self-medication hypothesis asserts that high levels of anxiety or panic may lead to alcohol use to alleviate these symptoms. While several studies support the tension-reduction hypothesis, there is less evidence of the mechanism of this underlying effect and why certain high-anxious people may be more vulnerable to it than others. The current study tested whether (a) strong beliefs in alcohol's tension-reduction qualities and (b) weak negative mood regulation expectancies, contributed to higher desires to drink alcohol. Consistent with the self-medication hypothesis, high-anxious undergraduates (as per the ASI and/or STAI) who possessed high expectations for alcohol's tension-reduction effects (measured by the AEQ) and low expectations of their ability to regulate their mood otherwise (measured by the NMR) in turn had significantly higher desires to drink alcohol (measured by the DAQ).