Is the Relationship Between College Drinking Behaviors and Social Anxiety Mediated by Alcohol Expectancies and Traumatic Life Experiences?

The relationship between alcohol consumption and social anxiety is difficult to understand, as there have been mixed findings in the research. In general, a positive correlation has been found between the two, with a focus on the mediating effect of alcohol outcome expectancies. Both positive expectancies and trauma have been correlated positively with social anxiety and drinking behavior. This paper reviews the literature and examines the relationship between social anxiety and alcohol consumption. A mediated model between these two variables with the mediators being alcohol expectancies and traumatic experiences was proposed, but this model did not fit the date. Specifically, we did not find a correlation between social anxiety and drinking behavior. Thus, we did exploratory analyses using forward regression to test the predictive abilities of drinking behavior, alcohol expectancies and trauma experience for social anxiety. We found that negative alcohol expectancies and trauma experience predicted social anxiety