| dc.description | Study One evaluated the hypothesis that high anxiety sensitivity (AS) levels may negatively reinforce alcohol use/abuse by promoting a heightened sober reactivity to theoretically-relevant stressors and heightened sensitivity to alcohol's emotional reactivity dampening effects. One-hundred-and-two undergraduate participants (51 high AS, 51 low AS) were assigned to either a placebo, low dose alcohol, or high dose alcohol beverage condition. Following beverage consumption and absorption, participants underwent a three-minute voluntary hyperventilation challenge. High AS - placebo participants displayed increased affective and cognitive reactivity to the challenge compared to low AS - placebo participants. Dose-dependent alcohol dampening of affective and cognitive reactivity to hyperventilation was observed only among high AS participants, suggesting that they may be particularly sensitive to alcohol-induced reductions in their degree of fear and negative thinking in response to the experience of physical arousal sensations. Study Two tested the hypothesis that alcohol outcome expectancies might contribute to alcohol's reactivity-dampening effects in high AS individuals, over-and-above the pharmacological effects of alcohol. Forty-eight high AS undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of three beverage conditions: alcohol, placebo, and control. The same procedure as Study One was followed. As in Study One, participants in the alcohol condition showed dampened affective and somatic responses to the challenge, and marginally dampened cognitive responses to the challenge, compared to both placebo and control participants. However, placebo participants did not display dampened responses to the challenge relative to control beverage condition participants, suggesting that alcohol expectancies may not mediate alcohol's stress response dampening effects in high AS individuals. Additional analyses suggested that tension-reduction expectancies might have contributed to an "inverse placebo" effect among high AS participants administered placebo. Implications of these results for the AS risk model of alcohol abuse are discussed, along with ideas for future research and prevention strategies for alcohol problems among high AS individuals. | en_US |
