Emotional regulation and motivation to drink: gender, negative emotionality, behavioral undercontrol, and family history

Despite support for the effectiveness of alcohol use disorders (AUD) treatment programs and the positive impact of policy changes related to alcohol use, AUD remains a major public health concern in the United States. As part of an effort to encourage transdisciplinary research, the integration of objective biological measures for AUD risk and existing psychosocial-based risk measures (e.g., demographic variables, personality characteristics, comorbid psychological disorders) are emerging as important areas of inquiry, with implications for the prevention and treatment of AUD. Theories of alcohol use emphasize the fundamental role of emotional regulation in drinking behaviors, and multiple psychosocial factors have been identified which influence such motivations for alcohol use. Through three separate, laboratory-based experimental investigations, this dissertation aimed to gain an understanding of the physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship between psychosocial factors (gender, personality, family history) and one’s desire to use alcohol for emotional regulation. In particular, this dissertation focused on examining the applicability of heart rate variability (HRV), an established psychophysiological measure of peripheral and central modulation of emotional arousal, in studying individual differences in emotional regulation. Changes in HRV in response to experimental manipulation of emotion and adaptive responding were linked to gender and personality differences in motivations for alcohol use. Gender differences in emotional reactivity suggest distinctive pathways toward unhealthy use of alcohol in men and women; that is, the pharmacological effects of alcohol appear to directly promote alcohol use in men, whereas cognitive expectancies, such as expectation that alcohol can counteract negative emotions, may underlie alcohol use in women, particularly when they are prone to negative mood states. Further, personality constructs of negative emotionality were associated with physiological dysregulation of emotion, which was linked to tendency to use alcohol for emotional regulation, particularly to suppress negative emotion. As a future direction, identification of malleable biological markers and the translation of these findings into clinical practices may help to better identify individuals at risk and suggest a novel approach for preventing or intervening in the development of AUD, which may in turn contribute to population health.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Tomoko Udo Schalle