Are shame and guilt personality styles associated with different alcohol use-related outcome expectancies?

Background: Whilst drinking to reduce negative affect (e.g., anxiety and depression) is a commonly reported motivation for consuming alcohol, minimal research has explored associations between shame-proneness and self-reported outcome expectancies from alcohol use. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between guilt, shame and alcohol use-related expectancies in a predominately undergraduate, community sample. Methods: Self-report data was collected for measures of these constructs in addition to overall alcohol use from a sample of 281 individuals, mean age 22.22 years (SD = 7.83). Results: Overall alcohol consumption was associated with both positive and negative alcohol use outcome expectancies. Contrary to hypotheses, shame-prone individuals did not appear to have a particularly strong belief that alcohol is actually effective in reducing tension. However, shame-prone individuals may believe that alcohol helps serve to reduce physiological arousal and other anxiety-related phenomena experienced in social contexts, and possibly also in the lead up to and during intimate encounters. In contrast, guilt-prone individuals expect and believe that they are successfully able to avoid negative emotional experiences after having consumed alcohol. Conclusions: Findings are broadly congruent with research indicating that shame-proneness is associated with general emotion regulation difficulties, while guilt-proneness tends to be unrelated to such problems.

Automated summary

The study found that overall alcohol consumption was associated with both positive and negative alcohol use outcome expectancies. Shame-prone individuals believed that alcohol helps reduce physiological arousal and social anxiety, while guilt-prone individuals believed that alcohol can help avoid negative emotional experiences.