(PS6-C56) Alcohol Use Among Socially Anxious Female Participants Across Social Contexts

Research has consistently shown a significant relationship between social anxiety and alcohol problems (Gilles et al., 2006; Buckner and Heimberg, 2010, Stewart et al., 2009). The relationship between social anxiety and alcohol consumption has been less established, with some results indicating no difference in drinking across socially and non – socially anxious individuals (Ham et al., 2002) and some indicating a negative relationship (Eggleston et al., 2004). We believe this may be because current research has only measured general alcohol consumption, rather than specific amounts of alcohol consumed within different social contexts. Therefore, we seek to fill this gap in the literature and hopefully provide more information about why socially anxious individuals are so at risk for developing alcohol – related problems. The current study consisted of 84 female undergraduate students (M_age = 19.47, SD = 2.84) from a Southeastern US university who participated online for course credit. Participants read through 8 scenarios (presented in random order) differing in social contexts. Scenarios were created by the principal investigator and edited by undergraduate research assistants. Scenarios included 2 social outings, 2 social performance situations, 2 romantic situations, and 2 negative affect control situations. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in each scenario and indicate how many alcohol beverages they would consume. Additionally, participants completed surveys assessing social anxiety, social avoidance, fear of negative evaluation, drinking motives, alcohol – related problems, and general alcohol consumption. Preliminary analyses were conducted in SPSS to assess alcohol consumption across the different social contexts. A repeated measures ANOVA with Greenhouse- Geisser corrections revealed a significant effect of context on the amount of alcohol participants planned on consuming, F(2.59, 214.88) = 82.5, p < .001, h_p² = .499). All pairwise comparisons were significant. Participants reported they would consume more alcohol in the social outing conditions (M= 3.53), followed by social performance conditions (M= 2.2), romantic conditions (M = 1.27), and control conditions (M = .79). Additionally, social avoidance and distress (SAD) scores moderated the relationship between alcohol consumption and drinking context, F(2.65, 217.57) = 4.88, p = .004, h_p² = .056. Surprisingly, participants scoring higher in SAD reported significantly less planned alcohol consumption in all 3 social contexts, compared to participants with lower scores of SAD. Results may provide insight into some of the challenges of those experiencing co-occurring social anxiety and alcohol problems, which may help provide more targeted context - specific interventions for those individuals.