Binge drinking indirectly predicts a negative emotional memory bias through coping motivations and depressive symptoms: The role of sex/gender

BACKGROUND: In this three-part study, we investigate whether the associations between binge and problematic drinking patterns with a negative emotional memory bias (NMB) are indirectly related through coping motivations and depressive symptoms. We also address potential sex differences in these relations. METHODS: Participants (N = 293) completed the Timeline Followback to assess binge drinking, the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) to assess problematic alcohol use, the Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised to assess coping motivations, and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales-21 to assess depression. Participants were asked to identify whether 30 emotional sentences were self-referent or not in an incidental encoding task; 24 h later they were asked to recall as many sentences as possible and a negative memory bias score was calculated. RESULTS: Across all three studies, we found significant bivariate relations between AUDIT scores, coping, depression, and an NMB, particularly for sentences participants deemed self-referent. In two undergraduate samples, there were significant indirect effects through coping motivations and depressive symptoms between binge drinking and an NMB in females as well as between AUDIT scores and an NMB in females only. In the community sample, there was only an indirect effect through coping motives, but this was observed in both females and males. CONCLUSION: These findings support a relation between binge drinking as well as problematic alcohol use and a self-referent NMB in the context of coping motivations for alcohol use and depressive symptoms. Moreover, the pattern of findings suggests this model primarily holds for females, yet may also apply to males at higher levels of problematic alcohol use.