The Impact of Negative Emotions on Drinking Among Individuals with Social Anxiety Disorder in Daily Life: The Moderating Effect of Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies

Emerging evidence suggests that increased negative emotions and maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategies underlie social anxiety disorder (SAD) and alcohol related problems, but little is known about how specific negative emotions and maladaptive ER strategies interact with one another in predicting drinking in daily life. This study aimed to investigate (1) the impact of within-person level negative emotions and maladaptive ER strategies on drinking among individuals with SAD, and (2) the moderating effect of specific maladaptive ER strategies (avoidance, rumination, suppression) on the relationship between negative emotions and alcohol craving in daily life via an ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Results revealed that the SAD group (n = 66) showed a higher increase rate in alcohol craving when they were socially anxious, tense and lonely than the non-SAD group (n = 53). In moderation analyses, maladaptive ER strategies interacted with negative emotions in predicting alcohol craving and different patterns were observed between groups: rumination was a significant moderator for the SAD group, while avoidance was for the non-SAD group in both concurrent and lagged effect analyses. Implications for the future research and interventions on daily negative emotions and maladaptive ER strategies are discussed.