College drinking behaviors: Mediational links between parenting styles, parental bonds, depression, and alcohol problems.

Mediational links between parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive), parental bond (positive, negative), depression, alcohol use and abuse were tested. A 2-group, multiple-indicator, multiple-cause structural equation model with 441 (216 female, 225 male) college students was examined. In general, a poor parental bond with one's father was highly predictive of depression, a well-known predictor of alcohol abuse and related problems for both genders. In contrast, a positive parental bond with one's father significantly mediated the positive effects of authoritative fathering on depression, which then decreased alcohol use problems for both genders. For women, a negative parental bond with one's father significantly mediated the effect of having an authoritarian father on depression, which increased alcohol use problems. These findings suggest that parental influences on pathways to alcohol abuse through depression (primarily through fathers for both genders) are distinct from pathways stemming from poor impulse control (with influences primarily from the same-sex parents for both genders). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

College drinking behaviors: Mediational links between parenting styles, impulse control, and alcohol-related outcomes.

Mediational links between parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive), impulsiveness (general control), drinking control (specific control), and alcohol use and abuse were tested. A pattern-mixture approach (for modeling non-ignorable missing data) with multiple-group structural equation models with 421 (206 female, 215 male) college students was used. Gender was examined as a potential moderator of parenting styles on control processes related to drinking. Specifically, the parent-child gender match was found to have implications for increased levels of impulsiveness (a significant mediator of parenting effects on drinking control). These findings suggest that a parent with a permissive parenting style who is the same gender as the respondent can directly influence control processes and indirectly influence alcohol use and abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dispositions to rash action moderate the associations between concurrent drinking, depressive symptoms, and alcohol problems during emerging adulthood.

“Impulsivity” has been consistently identified as a key personality predictor of alcohol-related problems and subsequent alcohol use disorder. Multiple prior studies have demonstrated impulsivity is an individual difference factor that strengthens the effects of some risk factors, such as alcohol consumption and depressive symptoms, on alcohol problems. However, recent research indicated common measures of impulsivity actually reflect multiple dispositions toward rash action, and that alcohol problems were most consistently related to one of those dispositions, negative urgency. Little research has examined how specific dispositions to rash action may act as putative moderators of other risk factors for alcohol problems. The goal of the current study was to test which dispositions to rash action moderated the effects of concurrent alcohol use or depressive symptoms on alcohol problems. Using a large cross-sectional sample of college students (n = 573), the current study utilized semicontinuous regression models, which allow prediction of both the likelihood and level of alcohol problems. Negative urgency was found to be the main predictor of alcohol problems, above and beyond other dispositions to rash action, which replicates prior research. However, each of the other dispositions exhibited risk-enhancing effects on the relations between either depressive symptoms or alcohol use and concurrent alcohol problems. Specifically, lower levels of premeditation enhanced the association between depressive symptoms and alcohol problems, while lower perseverance and higher sensation seeking were related to more alcohol problems at higher levels of alcohol use. Results suggest that multiple dispositions to rash action were related to problematic alcohol use both directly and via their interaction with other risk factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)