The transition to college often marks a significant increase in alcohol consumption among students, contributing to various risky behaviors and long-term negative outcomes such as academic decline and alcohol use disorders (AUD). Notably, two personality traits, positive urgency (acting rashly under extreme positive emotions) and negative urgency (acting rashly under extreme negative emotions), are key risk factors for alcohol use escalation. While prior research has primarily focused on the causal relationship between urgency traits, drinking motives, and subsequent alcohol use, this study seeks to examine whether alcohol consumption during the first year of college drives changes in urgency traits and drinking motives, specifically enhancement and coping motives.
The study employed a longitudinal design, involving 418 first-year college students sampled at three time points during their first academic year. Data were collected through self-report surveys using validated instruments, with alcohol use assessed via the Drinking Styles Questionnaire-Revised (DSQ-R), drinking motives, including enhancement and coping motives, measured through the Drinking Motives Questionnaire (DMQ), and positive and negative urgency traits evaluated using the Positive Urgency Measure and the UPPS-R Impulsive Behavior Scale. Mediation models analyzed whether urgency traits mediated the relationship between alcohol use at the start of the year and drinking motives at its end, controlling for demographic variables and baseline scores.
The findings indicated that alcohol use at the beginning of the academic year significantly predicted an increase in positive urgency by mid-year, which, in turn, led to higher enhancement motives by the end of the year, demonstrating a statistically significant indirect effect (B = .0028, 95% CI [.0000, .0007]). However, alcohol use did not significantly predict changes in negative urgency or coping motives, suggesting that alterations in negative urgency might require longer or more intense alcohol consumption to materialize. These results highlight how alcohol consumption can amplify positive urgency early in a drinking trajectory, reinforcing enhancement motives and risky drinking behaviors, thereby escalating the risk of developing alcohol use disorders (AUD). The findings emphasize the importance of early prevention strategies targeting positive urgency and enhancement motives to reduce the risk of AUD among college students.
Takeaway: Alcohol consumption during the first year of college increases positive urgency, indirectly driving enhancement motives and risky drinking behaviors, which heightens the risk of alcohol use disorders (AUD).