Hazardous Drinking Mediates the Relation Between Externalizing Personality and Reduced Adherence to COVID-19 Public Health Guidelines in University Students

Abstract

Using a multigroup path analysis, we examined if hazardous alcohol use mediated the relations between elevated externalizing personality traits (i.e., impulsivity or sensation seeking) and reduced adherence to COVID-19 public health guidelines. We hypothesized that those high in externalizing personality traits would demonstrate less adherence to public health guidelines and that hazardous alcohol use would mediate this relationship. First- and second-year undergraduates (N = 1232; ages 18–25) from five Canadian universities participated in a cross-sectional survey between January to April 2021. Individuals with higher levels of impulsive or sensation seeking personality traits demonstrated poorer adherence to COVID-19 public health guidelines and these relations were mediated by hazardous alcohol use. Results suggest that hazardous drinking is an important target for students high in impulsivity and sensation seeking to increase their adherence to public health guidelines and thereby help control viral spread.

Keywords

alcohol adherence impulsivity sensation seeking COVID-19

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Angus Reid Institue . (2020, August 17). Part Three: Behaviours - Preventing versus spreading. COVID-19 Compliance: One-in-Five Canadians Making Little to No Effort to Stop Coronavirus Spread. https://angusreid.org/covid-compliance/

Bush

Kivlahan

D. R.

McDonell

M. B.

Fihn

S. D.

Bradley

K. A.

ACQUIP) for the

A. C. Q. I. P.

(1998). The AUDIT alcohol consumption questions (AUDIT-C): An effective brief screening test for problem drinking. Archives of Internal Medicine, 158(16), 1789–1795. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.158.16.1789

Campbell

C.E.

Maisto

S.A.

(2018). Validity of the AUDIT-C screen for at-risk drinking among students utilizing university primary care. Journal of American College Health, 66(8), 774–782. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2018.1453514

Cheung

G. W.

Rensvold

R. B.

(2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 9(2), 233–255. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5

Coakley

K. E.

Lardier

D. T.

Holladay

K. R.

Amorim

F. T.

Mechler

Zuhl

M. N.

(2021). Mental health severity is associated with increases in alcohol consumption in young adult students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 39(3), 328–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/07347324.2021.1917325

Conrod

P. J.

Castellanos

Mackie

(2007). Personality-targeted interventions delay the growth of adolescent drinking and binge drinking. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49(2), 181–190. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01826.x

DeGrace

Baptist-Mohseni

Single

Keough

M. T.

Wardell

J. D.

Stewart

S. H.

(2021). Sex differences in maladaptive emotional and behavioral reponses to covid-19: What is the role of personality? Personality and Individual Differences, 178(110834), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110834

Einberger

Graupensperger

Lee

C. M.

(2021). Young adults’ physical distancing behaviors during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic: Adherence to guidelines and associations with alcohol use behavior. Emerging Adulthood, 9(5), 541–549. https://doi.org/10.1177/21676968211004679

Fendrich

Becker

Park

Russell

Finkelstein-Fox

Hutchison

(2021). Associations of alcohol, marijuana, and polysubstance use with non-adherence to COVID-19 public health guidelines in a US sample. Substance Abuse, 42(2), 220–226. https://doi.org/10.1080/08897077.2021.1891603

10.

Fillmore

M. T.

Blackburn

J. S.

Harrison

E. L. R.

(2008). Acute disinhibiting effects of alcohol as a factor in risky driving behavior. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 95(1–2), 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.12.018

11.

Frías-Armenta

Corral-Frías

N. S.

Corral-Verdugo

Lucas

M. Y.

(2021). Psychological predictors of precautionary behaviors in response to COVID-19: A structural model. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.559289

12.

Fritz

M. S.

MacKinnon

D. P.

(2007). Required sample size to detect the mediated effect. Psychological Science, 18(3), 233–239. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01882.x

13.

Graupensperger

Jaffe

A. E.

Fleming

C. N. B.

Kilmer

J. R.

Lee

C. M.

Larimer

M. E.

(2021). Changes in college student alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic: Are perceived drinking norms still relevant? Emerging Adulthood, 9(5), 531–540. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696820986742

14.

Herman

A. M.

Critchley

H. D.

Duka

(2018). Risk-taking and impulsivity: The role of mood states and interoception. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1625. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01625

15.

Bentler

P. M.

(1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118

16.

Kline

R. B.

(2011). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

17.

Lynne-Landsman

S. D.

Graber

J. A.

Nichols

T. R.

Botvin

G. J.

(2011). Is sensation seeking a stable trait or does it change over time? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(1), 48–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-010-9529-2

18.

Mackinnon

S. P.

Kehayes

I. L. L.

Clark

Sherry

S. B.

Stewart

S. H.

(2014). Testing the four-factor model of personality vulnerability to alcohol misuse: A three-wave, one-year longitudinal study. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 28(4), 1000–1012. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037244

19.

Matrajt

Leung

(2020). Evaluating the effectiveness of social distancing interventions to delay or flatten the epidemic curve of coronavirus disease. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 26(8), 1740–1748. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2608.201093

20.

Muthen

L. K.

Muthen

B. O.

(2017). (1998-2017). Mplus user’s guide. (8th ed.). Muthén & Muthén.

21.

Newton

N. C.

Conrod

P. J.

Slade

Carragher

Champion

K. E.

Barrett

E. L.

Kelly

E. v.

Nair

N. K.

Stapinski

Teesson

(2016). The long-term effectiveness of a selective, personality-targeted prevention program in reducing alcohol use and related harms: A cluster randomized controlled trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(9), 1056–1065. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12558

22.

Reid

M. C.

Fiellin

D. A.

O’Connor

P. G.

(1999). Hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption in primary care. Archives of Internal Medicine, 159(15), 1681. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.159.15.1681

23.

Stautz

Cooper

(2013). Impulsivity-related personality traits and adolescent alcohol use: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(4), 574–592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.03.003

24.

Taylor

Asmundson

GJG

(2021). Negative attitudes about facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic: The dual importance of perceived ineffectiveness and psychological reactance. PLoS ONE, 16(2)(e0246317). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246317

25.

Wilsnack

R. W.

Wilsnack

S. C.

Kristjanson

A. F.

Vogeltanz-Holm

N. D.

Gmel

(2009). Gender and alcohol consumption: Patterns from the multinational GENACIS project. Addiction, 104(9), 1487–1500. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02696.x

26.

Wismans

Letina

Wennberg

Thurik

Baptista

Burke

Dejardin

Janssen

Santarelli

Torrès

Franken

(2021). The role of impulsivity and delay discounting in student compliance with COVID-19 protective measures. Personality and Individual Differences, 179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110925

27.

Woicik

P. A.

Stewart

S. H.

Pihl

R. O.

Conrod

P. J.

(2009). The substance use risk profile scale: A scale measuring traits linked to reinforcement-specific substance use profiles. Addictive Behaviors, 34(12), 1042–1055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2009.07.001

28.

Zuckerman

(1994). Impulsive unsocialized sensation seeking: The biological foundations of a basic dimension of personality. In Bates

J. E.

Wachs

T. D.

(Eds.), Temperament: Individual differences at the interface of biology and behavior. (pp. 219–255). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10149-008