Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 31, Issue 3, March 2006, Pages 388-398
Addictive Behaviors

Social anxiety, alcohol expectancies, and self-efficacy as predictors of heavy drinking in college students

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2005.05.020Get rights and content

Abstract

Burke and Stephens (1999) [Burke, R.S., Stephens, R.S. Social anxiety and drinking in college students: A social cognitive theory analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 19, (1999) 513–530.] proposed a social cognitive theory of heavy drinking in college students. According to this theory, alcohol expectancies for social facilitation and self-efficacy for refusing heavy drinking in anxiety-producing social situations moderate the relationship between social anxiety and drinking. In the current study, a significant three-way interaction was observed among social anxiety, expectancies, and self-efficacy when amount and frequency of drinking was the dependent variable. As predicted by the model, socially anxious college students with low self-efficacy for avoiding heavy drinking in social situations and high positive expectancies for social facilitation reported more alcohol consumption than other socially anxious individuals.

Introduction

Heavy drinking is common among college students and often leads to negative consequences. Wechsler, Lee, Kuo, and Lee (2000) surveyed over 14,000 college students and found that over 40% engaged in binge drinking. Among 388 college freshman, 22% reported engaging in sexual situations they regretted while under the influence of alcohol, and 14% endorsed driving while intoxicated (Read, Wood, Kahler, Maddock, & Palfai, 2003). In addition, some students indicated signs of physical dependence, including blackouts (45%), increased tolerance (56%), and withdrawal symptoms (5%). The college environment often encourages excessive alcohol consumption (e.g., alcohol is easily available; drinking at parties is the norm). Nevertheless, Burke and Stephens (1999) proposed that individual differences may also be important in understanding drinking behavior in this population.

Social anxiety is one individual differences variable that may be related to heavy drinking among college students. Social anxiety is characterized by fear of negative evaluation by others. In its severe form, social anxiety results in significant distress or functional impairment and is a clinical diagnosis referred to as social phobia (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000).

Social anxiety has been shown to be related drinking among college students in several studies. Using a structured diagnostic interview, Kushner and Sher (1993) found that having a diagnosis of social phobia significantly increased the risk of also having a diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence among college students. Goodwin (1990) found that a common reason college students reported for drinking was to meet new people, including members of the opposite sex. College students also report drinking to be sociable, to fit in with others, and to feel less shy (Kairouz, Gliksman, Demers, & Adlaf, 2002).

Social phobia is often comorbid with substance abuse (Moutier & Stein, 1999) and precedes alcohol abuse in many dually-diagnosed individuals (Schneier, Martin, Liebowitz, Gorman, & Fyer, 1989). Therefore, some individuals who abuse alcohol may be drinking in response to their social anxiety. Additionally, experimental data suggest that alcohol consumption decreases performance anxiety among individuals with social phobia (Abrams, Kushner, Medina, & Voight, 2001) and that individuals with social phobia increase their alcohol intake following a performance task (Abrams, Kushner, Medina & Voight, 2002). Such studies demonstrate the negative reinforcement value of alcohol among individuals with social phobia and suggest that individuals with social phobia who routinely use alcohol to reduce social anxiety may be at risk for developing abuse or dependence problems (Abrams et al., 2001, Abrams et al., 2002).

In addition to social anxiety, another potentially important individual differences variable that may affect drinking behavior among college students is alcohol expectancies. Alcohol expectances are beliefs that people hold about the effects of alcohol. Alcohol expectancies have been implicated as playing a role in amount of drinking in multiple studies. For example, two longitudinal studies have demonstrated that greater alcohol expectancies of social facilitation held by adolescents even before they began drinking predicted increases in drinking over time (Christiansen et al., 1989, Smith et al., 1995).

Several studies with college students have examined both alcohol expectancies and social anxiety. Burke and Stephens (1997) found that socially anxious college students held expectancies that alcohol would produce positive social effects. Lewis and O'Neill (2000) found that college students who engaged in problem drinking had higher levels of social anxiety and held more positive alcohol expectancies than non-problem drinkers. O'Hare (1990) found that social anxiety significantly predicted alcohol expectancies of tension reduction and increased social assertiveness. Alcohol expectancies of anxiety reduction specifically in social situations have been found to moderate the relationship between social anxiety and drinking in college students (Tran, Haaga, & Chambless, 1997). More recently, Eggleston, Woolaway-Bickel, and Schmidt (2004) found that social anxiety was related to greater positive and negative alcohol expectancies. Lastly, for college men, alcohol expectancies of social assertiveness were found to be related to increased drinking prior to confronting an anxiety-provoking speech task (Kidorf & Lang, 1999).

In addition to social anxiety and alcohol expectancies, another potentially important individual differences variable that may affect drinking behavior among college students is self-efficacy for refusing heavy drinking. In other words, some individuals may not feel capable of turning down drinks, or drinking a small amount of alcohol, in situations where other people are drinking and it is the “norm.” Among alcoholic clients who subsequently drank after leaving treatment, self-efficacy judgments at intake accounted for a significant percentage of the variance in the amount of alcohol they consumed at follow-up (Solomon & Annis, 1990). Evans and Dunn (1995) found both lower self-efficacy judgments and positive alcohol expectancies to be related to greater alcohol consumption in a college sample. Burke and Stephens (1997) found that students with high levels of social anxiety reported lower self-efficacy for avoiding heavy drinking in situations that cause social anxiety than students with low social anxiety. Among a community sample of drinkers, Lee and Oei (1993) found that participants who find it difficult to resist drinking when they are given opportunities to drink typically report higher frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption. Hasking and Oei (2002) found that alcohol expectancies and self-efficacy significantly interacted to predict volume of alcohol consumed in a community sample. Specifically, for lower drinking refusal self-efficacy, higher alcohol expectancies were associated with consumption of a greater volume of alcohol while lower alcohol expectancies were associated with consumption of a lesser volume of alcohol. For higher drinking refusal self-efficacy, there was not a significant difference in volume of alcohol consumed between levels of alcohol expectancies.

To our knowledge, no study has examined the relationship among social anxiety, alcohol expectancies, self-efficacy for drink refusal, and drinking behavior simultaneously. Burke and Stephens (1999) proposed that alcohol expectancies and self-efficacy for refusing heavy drinking are moderating factors in the relationship between social anxiety and drinking in college students. In other words, some socially anxious individuals may hold positive beliefs about alcohol's social facilitation effects (e.g., that it will help them be more outgoing, friendly, and witty). Socially anxious individuals who hold these expectancies are predicted to be more likely to drink in social situations than their socially anxious counterparts who do not strongly hold such expectancies. Positive expectancies of social facilitation are proposed to be the most important alcohol expectancies among individuals with social anxiety (Burke & Stephens, 1999). In addition, individuals with social anxiety who do not believe strongly in their ability to resist drinking heavily in anxiety-provoking social situations are predicted to be more likely to engage in heavy drinking than their counterparts who have higher self-efficacy in this area. The current study is an attempt to test the relationship among the variables included in the social cognitive theory of social anxiety and drinking in college students of Burke and Stephens (1999).

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 118 (72 women) unselected undergraduate students. The average age of participants was 19 (SD = 1.29). All participants were single. The racial composition of the sample was 86% Caucasian, 9% African-American, and 6% other ethnicities.

Measures

The Social Phobia Scale (SPS; Mattick & Clarke, 1998) and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS; Mattick & Clarke, 1998) are two companion measures for assessing social anxiety. According to Brown et al. (1997), “…the SIAS and SPS may be best

Preliminary analyses

The drinking behavior of the sample was examined. The mean AUDIT score was 9.16 (SD = 6.84). In this sample, 56.8% of participants met the cutoff score of 8 or higher, which, according to Saunders et al. (1993), suggests a strong likelihood of hazardous and harmful drinking behavior. In the Saunders et al. (1993) study, 98% of a sample of known alcoholics scored 10 or higher, and 41.5% of the participants met this more stringent cut-off. O'Hare and Sherrer (1999) also used the AUDIT with a

Discussion

The current study provided partial support for the social cognitive theory of social anxiety and drinking among college students of Burke and Stephens (1999). As predicted, socially anxious college students with low self-efficacy for avoiding heavy drinking in anxiety-provoking social situations and high positive expectancies for social facilitation reported more alcohol consumption than other socially anxious individuals. However, this pattern was not unique to highly socially anxious

Acknowledgements

The data reported herein are from the first author's doctoral dissertation, completed under the supervision of the second author. The authors wish to thank Joshua Houseman, Sarah Deal, and Michael Poet for their assistance with data collection for this study.

Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, New Orleans, LA, November, 2004.

References (43)

  • T. O'Hare

    Measuring excessive alcohol use in college drinking contexts: The drinking context scale

    Addictive Behaviors

    (1997)
  • T. O'Hare et al.

    Validating the alcohol use disorder identification test with college first-offenders

    Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment

    (1999)
  • T.P.S. Oei et al.

    A cognitive model of binge drinking: The influence of alcohol expectancies and drinking refusal self-efficacy

    Addictive Behaviors

    (2004)
  • F.R. Schneier et al.

    Alcohol abuse in social phobia

    Journal of Anxiety Disorders

    (1989)
  • K. Abrams et al.

    Self-administration of alcohol before and after a public speaking challenge by individuals with social phobia

    Psychology of Addictive Behaviors

    (2002)
  • L.S Aiken et al.

    Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions

    (1991)
  • American Psychiatric Association

    Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

    (2002)
  • H.M. Annis et al.

    Situational confidence questionnaire (SCQ-39) user's guide

    (1988)
  • R.M. Baron et al.

    The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1986)
  • B. Borsari et al.

    Effects of a brief motivational intervention with college student drinkers

    Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

    (2000)
  • E.J. Brown et al.

    Validation of the social interaction anxiety scale and the social phobia scale across the anxiety disorders

    Psychological Assessment

    (1997)
  • Cited by (137)

    • Shyness and susceptibility to social influence: Stronger concordance between norms and drinking among shy individuals

      2021, Addictive Behaviors
      Citation Excerpt :

      Similarly, Young et al. (2015) found that shyness was negatively associated with the total number of drinks consumed per week. However, similar to findings on social anxiety (Buckner, Eggleston, & Schmidt, 2006; Gilles, Turk, & Fresco, 2006; Stewart et al., 2006), shy individuals tend to experience more alcohol-related problems (Lewis & O'Neill, 2000; Young, DiBello, Traylor, Zvolensky, & Neighbors, 2015). One investigation explored drinking motives in relation to shyness and alcohol-related problems and found that shy individuals experienced more alcohol-related problems, due in part to overlap in coping and social drinking motives (Young et al., 2015).

    • Context-specific drinking and social anxiety: The roles of anticipatory anxiety and post-event processing

      2020, Addictive Behaviors
      Citation Excerpt :

      There is some evidence of specificity in the relationship between social anxiety and alcohol with AUD associated with higher comorbid rates of SAD than most other anxiety disorders (Grant, Stinson, & Dawson, 2004) and adolescents with SAD were four times more likely to have alcohol dependence in early adulthood, even after controlling for theoretically relevant variables (e.g., gender, depression; Buckner et al., 2008). Further, elevated social anxiety in non-clinical samples has also been associated with greater alcohol-related problems (e.g., Buckner & Heimberg, 2010; Buckner, Eggleston, & Schmidt, 2006; Gilles, Turk, & Fresco, 2006; Lewis & O'Neill, 2000). The co-occurrence of social anxiety and alcohol-related problems is associated with greater impairment than either condition alone, including more severe SAD and AUD symptoms, greater psychiatric comorbidity, more health problems, lower occupational status, and greater deficits in interpersonal functioning (Buckner, Timpano, Zvolensky, Sachs-Ericsson, & Schmidt, 2008; Schneier et al., 1989, 2010; Thevos, Thomas, & Randall, 1999; Thomas, Thevos, & Randall, 1999).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text