Date of Award

Winter 2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Committee Director

Paul T. Harrell

Committee Director

Robin J. Lewis

Committee Member

Bryan E. Porter

Abstract

The prevalence of e-cigarette use in young adults rose dramatically in the United States over the past decade. Nonetheless, our understanding of the motives that make young adults more susceptible to e-cigarette use remains limited. Risk factors associated with susceptibility to combustible cigarettes suggest that negative affect reduction outcome expectancies are positively associated with cigarette susceptibility in this age group. Further, emotion competencies, such as emotion regulation difficulties, distress tolerance, and positive and negative urgency have been positively associated with both susceptibility and negative affect reduction expectancies. Determining the role of negative affect reduction outcome expectancies on e-cigarette use requires further research and investigation to clarify the relationship between these emotional competencies and e-cigarette susceptibility.

Participants were undergraduate students who completed measures on e-cigarette use and susceptibility, e-cigarette outcome expectancies, emotion dysregulation, anxiety sensitivity, distress tolerance, and urgency. In contrast to our hypotheses, a multivariate analysis of variance failed to find differences between individuals who engaged in e-cigarettes and those that did not in regards to emotion regulation, distress tolerance or positive or negative urgency. Results of two separate analyses of covariance indicated that individuals who engaged in e-cigarette use e-cigarettes did not have higher smoking negative affect reduction outcome expectancies or cigarette susceptibility. Negative affect reduction outcome expectancies did not mediate the relationship between these emotional difficulties and e-cigarette susceptibility. Further, negative affect reduction outcome expectancies did not mediate the relationship between these emotional difficulties and e-cigarette susceptibility. However, path analysis indicated two significant direct pathways from negative urgency and emotion dysregulation to e-cigarette susceptibility. The results indicate that emotional competencies, particularly negative urgency and emotion dysregulation, may be important factors to examine for interventions to reduce substance use susceptibility in the young adult population. Interventions should focus on building emotion regulation skills and emotion coping skills to decrease negative urgency. Future research should aim to expand the research by replicating longitudinally and in more diverse samples.

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DOI

10.25777/q404-3k44

ISBN

9780438989436

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