The Relationship Between Social Anxiety and Alcohol and Marijuana Use Outcomes Among Concurrent Users: A Motivational Model of Substance Use

Abstract

Protective Strategies Study Team †Background: College students with more social anxiety symptoms are particularly vulnerable to problematic alcohol and marijuana use given their susceptibility for elevated anxiety symptoms in social settings combined with the normative nature of substance use. Existing research has established substance use as coping motivated for these students when examining alcohol and marijuana use problems separately. The next step is to determine whether students with more social anxiety who use both substances do so for similar or different reasons. The current study tested a comprehensive (i.e., all variables in the same model) motivational model of alcohol/marijuana use in a sample of college students from 10 universities across the United States who endorsed both past-month alcohol and marijuana use.Methods: College students were recruited through psychology department participant pools and completed an online survey assessing mental health symptoms, substance use motives, and substances use behaviors. Current sample comprised concurrent alcohol/marijuana users (n = 2,034), 29.6% of whom endorsed clinically indicated levels of social anxiety and nearly one-fourth exceeded the cutoff for hazardous drinking (23.2%) and hazardous marijuana use (21.9%).Results: Across both substances, coping motives significantly mediated the positive relationship between social anxiety symptoms and substance use problems. Unique to alcohol, conformity motives mediated the association between social anxiety symptoms and alcohol-related problems.Conclusions: Taken together, students with more social anxiety who are focused on anxiety management may use either alcohol or marijuana; however, these students may experience more alcohol-related problems when drinking to fit in with peers.

Individual and Environmental Factors Associated with Tobacco Smoking, Alcohol Abuse and Illegal Drug Consumption in University Students: A Mediating Analysis

“…Overall, risky alcohol consumption behavior has an adverse effect across psychosocial wellbeing, academic performance, quality of life, and general health [9][10][11][12][13][14]41,77,78], but also contributes to increasing the risk of drug abuse in students who already smoke cigarettes. This is of utmost importance because most adolescents and young adults believe that intermittent tobacco smoking causes little or no harm, and therefore are at more risk of engaging in risky and unhealthy behaviors [79].…”

Contribution of health motives to cannabis use among college students

“…Decreases in Expansion motives were associated with poorer treatment outcome while decreases in Coping motives were associated with better treatment outcome. In a more recent study by Villarosa-Hurlocker et al (2019), Coping motives significantly mediated the relationship between social anxiety symptoms and substance use problems. Spradlin and Cuttler (2019) also observed that Coping motives were significant mediators on the relationship between stress and frequency of cannabis use and between stress and problematic cannabis use.…”

A Scoping Review of Associations Between Cannabis Use and Anxiety in Adolescents and Young Adults

“…Studies also reported associations with specific types of anxiety, as well as potential mediators and moderators. Generalized and social anxiety were both associated with cannabis-related problems (but not use) [50][51][52], with social anxiety also being associated with more problem severity [53] and generalized anxiety associated with use frequency (as opposed to endorsement of any use) [50,54]. Cannabis users were also more likely to endorse higher separation anxiety in adolescence compared to non-users [55].…”