Indirect effects of theory of mind on alcohol use and problems in underage drinkers: The role of peer pressure to drink.

Autor: Kumar L; Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA., Zhou A; Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA., Sanov B; Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA., Beitler S; Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA., Skrzynski CJ; Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder, USA., Creswell KG; Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Addictive behaviors reports [Addict Behav Rep] 2022 Nov 01; Vol. 16, pp. 100468. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Nov 01 (Print Publication: 2022).
DOI: 10.1016/j.abrep.2022.100468
Abstrakt: Objective: Prior studies demonstrate a link between socio-cognitive deficits and alcohol problems in adolescents and young adults. Researchers have proposed that young people with such deficits may misperceive and over-value peers' attitudes about drinking and consider drinking a way to be accepted by their peer group. We test this hypothesis by investigating whether theory of mind (ToM) deficits in underage (18-20-year-old) drinkers are associated with binge drinking and alcohol problems, and whether these ToM deficits have an indirect effect on alcohol outcomes through perceived peer pressure to drink (i.e., high conformity motives and low perceived ability to refuse alcohol during social pressure).
Method: Participants ( N  = 472; 91 % female; 71 % White; M age  = 19.28 ± 0.77) were recruited from TurkPrime and completed measures assessing ToM, conformity motives, self-efficacy to resist peer pressure to drink, alcohol problems, and binge drinking. Bivariate correlations were run to examine associations between study variables. Indirect effect models were run in SPSS, using the PROCESS add-on, to assess the indirect effects of ToM on alcohol outcomes through conformity motives and self-efficacy to refuse peer pressure to drink.
Results: ToM had indirect effects on binge drinking and alcohol problems through conformity motives (but not self-efficacy to resist peer pressure to drink). Lower ToM was associated with higher conformity motives, which were then associated with more frequent binge drinking and greater alcohol problems.
Conclusions: These findings highlight the role of social cognition in young adult alcohol misuse and suggest more work is needed to understand the potential influence of peer pressure in this association.
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(© 2022 The Authors.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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