Exploring the association between emotion-driven impulsivity, motives to drink, mindfulness and alcohol misuse

Abstract

Trait impulsivity is a reliable, robust predictor of alcohol misuse, although evidence increasingly supports a multifaceted model of impulsivity, whereby unique dimensions interact with emotional states, motives to drink, and mindfulness. Negative and positive urgency involve acting impulsively under the influence of negative and positive emotions. Drinking motives are characterised as the value that individuals place on the particular effects they want to achieve while consuming alcohol. While mindfulness is conceptualised as the present moment awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment. This study explored the association between emotion-driven impulsivity and alcohol misuse, and investigated the role of trait mindfulness and drinking motives in this relationship. A diverse online sample of participants (n = 414) completed a battery of demographic and alcohol related items, as well as self-report measures indexing facets of impulsivity, motives to drink, and mindfulness. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the utility of two models: the first, linking positive urgency to enhancement motives and mindfulness; the second, linking negative urgency to coping motives and mindfulness. Negative and positive emotion models of impulsivity provided satisfactory representations of alcohol misuse, explaining 33% and 20% of the variance in hazardous drinking, respectively. Negative urgency was not directly associated with alcohol misuse, but indirect effects were observed via coping motives and mindfulness. Positive urgency was directly related to alcohol misuse, but no indirect effects were observed via enhancement motives or mindfulness. This study highlights how unique motivational pathways of emotion-driven impulsivity are linked to alcohol misuse. Specifically, these findings identify drinking to cope and mindfulness as key mechanisms in the relationship between negative urgency and hazardous drinking.