ANXIETY AND DRINKING BEHAVIOR - MODERATING EFFECTS OF TENSION-REDUCTION ALCOHOL OUTCOME EXPECTANCIES

We evaluated whether alcohol outcome expectancies moderate the associa tion between measures of anxiety and alcohol use. Student subjects com pleted questionnaires related to their level of anxiety, recent alcoho l-use patterns, and outcome expectancies for alcohol to be tension red ucing. Interviews were used to determine the presence or absence of al cohol dependence in subjects and in their first- and second-degree rel atives. Consistent with predictions, male subjects with high tension-r eduction alcohol outcome expectancies showed a stronger positive corre lation between measures of anxiety and drinking behavior than did male subjects with low tension-reduction outcome expectancies. However, th is effect was not found for female subjects. We note past studies show ing similar gender effects, and relate the overall study findings to t he tension-reduction hypothesis of stress-induced drinking.