title: Attentional bias and drinking to cope with social anxiety.
abstract: This study investigated the sensitivity of the emotional Stroop test for identifying individuals who reported drinking to cope with social fears. Community volunteers completed a modified Stroop task during which social threat, alcohol-related, and control words were presented. High scores on drinking-to-cope measures were hypothesized to be associated with longer response latencies to both social threat and alcohol-related words. Consistent with previous studies, alcohol dependence was correlated with latencies for alcohol-related words, and level of social anxiety was correlated with response latency to social threat words. As expected, drinking-to-cope measures predicted response latency to alcohol-related and social threat words. These results suggest that the emotional Stroop test is useful in studying the relationship between social anxiety and alcohol consumption.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs, Medican University of South Carolina, Aiken, SC 29801, USA. maureec@usca.edu
authors.forename: Maureen H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Carrigan
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Drobes
authors.forename: Carrie L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Randall
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012660:Semantics; D012919:Social Behavior