Affect variability in relation to alcohol use frequency, intensity, and concurrent cannabis use among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Although alcohol use is related to daily affect, findings regarding affect variability—the degree to which individuals exhibit day-to-day fluctuations in affect—and alcohol use have been mixed. The present study assessed whether individuals who use alcohol tend to have higher positive and negative affect variability than individuals who do not, as well as whether higher affect variability is related to more frequent and intense alcohol use among individuals who use alcohol. We also explored whether affect variability differed between individuals who use alcohol and those who concurrently use alcohol and cannabis. College students (N = 1909; M = 20.1, SD = 1.3; 67.7% female; 76.6% white; n = 1147 individuals who use alcohol) completed a 21-day protocol between February-December 2021 in which they reported daily affect, number of drinks consumed, and any cannabis use. As hypothesized, individuals who used alcohol had higher positive and negative affect variability than individuals who did not. Among individuals who used alcohol, individuals with higher negative affect variability drank alcohol more frequently, and both higher positive and negative affect variability were related to more intense alcohol use. No differences emerged between individuals who used alcohol and those who concurrently used alcohol and cannabis. Taken together, higher positive and negative affect variability were related to higher odds of using alcohol and more frequent and intense use among individuals who use alcohol, over and above average affect. Higher affect variability could relate to alcohol use because of difficulties with emotion regulation or heightened sensitivity to the environment.

Keywords:

• Affective variability
• emotional variability
• emotion dynamics
• alcohol use
• cannabis use

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants for their involvement in this study.

Ethics statement

Ethical approval was obtained from The Pennsylvania State University Institutional Review Board, and all participants provided informed consent.

Authors’ contributions

Danny Rahal completed data analyses and wrote the manuscript. Ashley Linden-Carmichael contributed to the editing and writing of the manuscript. Stephanie Lanza secured funding for the study, designed the overall study, oversaw data collection, and contributed to the editing and writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed to conceptualizing the research questions in this manuscript and have approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/s8ezk/.

Notes

1 A minority of participants had used cannabis but not alcohol across the 21-day period (n = 41), and this group was omitted from analyses due to the comparably small size.

Additional information

Funding

Danny Rahal was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse through the Prevention and Methodology Training program [T32 DA017629; MPIs J. Maggs and S. Lanza]. Ashley N. Linden-Carmichael was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [K01 AA026854]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.