(PS6-D81) Negative Emotion Differentiation Moderates the Daily Association Between Negative Affect and Marijuana Coping Motives and Craving

Motivational frameworks of substance use posit that people use substances to regulate emotions. Negative emotion differentiation (NED) is a trait construct that refers to one’s overall ability to make subtle distinctions between different negative emotional states. It is hypothesized that compared to people with lower NED (e.g., “I feel bad”), people with higher NED (e.g., greater ability to differentiate feelings “I feel anxious, but not angry or sad”) use more adaptive emotion regulation strategies because they have a clearer emotion target to regulate. Thus, those with lower NED may be at higher risk of using maladaptive coping strategies (e.g., substance use) when experiencing negative affect (NA). The present study examined NED as a between-person moderator of the daily association between NA and marijuana outcomes. We hypothesized that on days participants reported higher NA, people with higher NED would report lower coping motives, less craving, and fewer hours high/negative marijuana consequences than people with lower NED.

A community sample of 409 young adults ages 18-25 (M_age=21.6, SD=2.2, 51% female) who used alcohol and marijuana completed a baseline survey and five 2-week bursts of online daily surveys across two years (2x/day; 87% days with > 1 survey completed). The NED index and daily NA variables (5 items from brief PANAS) were calculated using participants’ daily afternoon intensity ratings of five negative emotions. The NED score was computed using an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of the five items across all days. High NED (small correlations between NA ratings) indicates the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between emotions, whereas low NED (large correlations between NA ratings) suggests difficulty differentiating between emotions. The ICC was multiplied by -1, so that higher scores represent higher NED. Daily NA was calculated by taking the mean of the five NA ratings each day. Multilevel models tested whether NED (Level 2) moderated associations between NA (Level 1) and outcomes. Separate analyses were conducted for three analytic samples (all days, days with any craving, marijuana use days).

Across all days (n=20,012), on days with higher reported NA, people with higher NED had a greater likelihood of experiencing any craving than those with lower NED. Across all days craving was reported (n=8,994), on days with higher reported NA, those with higher NED reported stronger craving than those with lower NED. Across all marijuana use days (n=6,432), on days with higher reported NA, people with higher NED reported greater coping motives than those with lower NED. NED did not moderate associations between NA and hours high or negative consequences.

Inconsistent with prior work finding that people higher in NED are less likely to use substances when experiencing high NA, individuals with a higher ability to differentiate between negative emotions reported higher coping motives and state craving when experiencing higher NA. Thus, it may be that high NED individuals crave and purposefully use marijuana to reduce specific affective states (e.g., anxiety). Findings have implications for intervention efforts aimed at reducing coping-motivated marijuana use among young adults.