Chelsie M Young

Rowan University · Department of Psychology

Perceived norms of drinking prevalence (descriptive norms) and approval (injunctive norms) are among the most robust predictors of college student drinking, but the dynamic fluctuations of these relationships over time are less understood. We examined longitudinal associations of descriptive and injunctive norms on alcohol consumption, disaggregati...

Social media posts may elicit strong, instantaneous feelings of irritation, or “annoyance.” The current experiment investigated how participants’ ratings of Facebook posts and their levels of closeness to the poster impacted these feelings. Respondents (N = 476) were asked to rate how irrelevant, inappropriate, mundane, and annoying Facebook posts...

Background Risk for cardiovascular disease is particularly high among women in midlife (ages 40–60). Moderate-to-vigorous-intensity physical activity (PA) can protect against risk during this time, and research is needed to understand contributors to PA motivation and behavior in daily life. Purpose This study used ecological momentary assessment...

This research evaluated the effects of two methodological factors (i.e., delivery modality and incentives) on attrition, data quality, depth of processing, and perceived value of a personalized normative feedback (PNF) intervention targeting drinking reduction in college students. We expected in lab (vs. remote) participation would be associated wi...

Objective: Recent research has revealed positive associations between alcohol use and physical activity. However, findings from these studies have been inconsistent, and longitudinal designs have been underutilized. Therefore, the present study examined longitudinal associations between physical activity and alcohol use in a sample of young adults....

Smartphones, while useful, can also function as a source of distraction from daily life and may reduce life satisfaction by inhibiting concentration and interrupting attention to ongoing tasks, thoughts, and social interactions. Objectives: The current study tested whether interruptions in flow mediate associations between problematic smartphone...

Purpose: Drinking is common among young adult veterans. Previous research has established that veterans' drinking is more strongly associated with veteran versus civilian drinking norms. The present research extends these findings by examining the influence of self-identification both with other veterans and with civilians as moderators of the ass...

Despite a large body of work exploring associations between perceived norms and drinking and norms-based interventions for drinking, less work has examined moderators of associations between norms and drinking outcomes to determine potential sub-groups that might benefit most from brief norms-based interventions. The present study investigates shyn...

In the early/mid 20th century, scientists and philosophers advocated for a scientific framework that valued objectivity and certainty. This framework was committed to the value-free ideal, which held that social, political, ethical, and personal values are irrelevant to the process of science. This value system was adopted, both in science and publ...

The current proposed study aims to evaluate expressive writing as a novel intervention for reducing problematic drinking among college students. College students are at increased risk for alcohol misuse compared to other adults, and the development of efficacious intervention approaches is an urgent priority. The vast majority of individually focus...

Background Personalized normative feedback (PNF) interventions have repeatedly been found to reduce drinking among undergraduates. However, effects tend to be small, potentially due to inattention to and inadequate processing of the information. Adding a writing component to PNF interventions may allow for greater cognitive processing of the feedba...

High-risk drinking events (e.g., Mardi Gras) are associated with heavy and problematic drinking behaviors in college students. Online personalized normative feedback (PNF) interventions have been found to reduce college drinking, yet few studies have investigated the effect of event-specific PNF on drinking. The present study investigated the impac...

Deviance Regulation Theory (DRT) proposes that individuals regulate their behavior to be in line with the behaviors of others. Specifically, individuals desire to stand out in positive way and not stand out in a negative way. DRT has been successfully applied to encourage other health behaviors and offers a unique method to utilize both injunctive...

Heavy and problematic drinking is a concern among young adult military veterans. Personalized normative feedback (PNF) interventions that target normative misperceptions regarding drinking have been efficacious among young adults and have recently begun to be implemented among veteran populations in an effort to reduce heavy drinking. However, mode...

Drinking identity, or the tendency to view one's self as a drinker, is a unique predictor of alcohol use and related consequences among young adults; yet the mechanism by which it leads to alcohol problems is poorly understood. Based on self-presentation and self-verification perspectives, we examined drinking to cope as a mediator of the associati...

Evidence indicates that religious involvement is associated with lower levels of alcohol consumption. However, mechanisms underlying the specific effects of religion on alcohol behaviours are still not entirely clear. This study examined potential differences in religious perceptions of alcohol consumption (RePAC) among Christian, Buddhist, Muslim,...

Heavy college drinking is associated with risky sexual behavior. It is therefore important to identify groups that are especially vulnerable to alcohol-influenced sexual risk (e.g., unplanned/unexpected sex). Undergraduates with elevated social anxiety represent one such vulnerable group given that social anxiety is associated with fear of intimacy...

Objective: A key assumption when assessing alcohol-related problems is that these problems are considered negative. A growing literature suggests that college drinkers do not perceive all measured consequences to be negative. Research has established the impact of others' beliefs on personal beliefs and behaviors. The purpose of this study was to...

Rates of alcohol consumption continue to be a concern, particularly for individuals who are college age. Drinking patterns have changed over time, with the frequency of binge drinking (consuming four/five or more drinks for women/men) remaining high (30% to 40%). Young adults in the college age range are developmentally and socially at higher risk...

The present study assessed relationships among gratitude, ambivalence over emotional expression (AEE), cognitive reappraisal, and depressive symptoms. Three-hundred and fifty-two undergraduates (M age = 23.51 years, SD = 6.80) completed study materials. Findings revealed that higher levels of gratitude mitigated the positive relationship between AE...

Although social networking sites such as Facebook have been touted as creating a global village, there may be a downside to such computer-mediated interactions on users’ well-being. One such consequence is that stimuli via computer-mediated interactions may be anxiety-provoking for some users. As such, recent studies have tried to ascertain persona...

Objectives: The present study assessed combinations of spirituality/religiosity (S/R), a known protective factor against heavy drinking, with drinking motives, and alcohol-related ambivalence to better understand how these factors interrelate and are associated with drinking and alcohol-related problems. Methods: Participants were 241 heavy drin...

Objective: Personalized normative feedback (PNF) interventions have received empirical support, are presumed to work by reducing normative misperceptions, and have been found to be particularly efficacious for those who drink for social reasons. However, PNF interventions also offer direct comparisons between one's own drinking and normative drink...

The present study examined the roles of shame- and guilt-proneness as mediators of associations between general causality orientations and depressive symptoms. We expected autonomy would be associated with less depressive symptoms based on higher guilt-proneness and lower shame-proneness, whereas control would be associated with more depressive sym...

Objective: Given widespread alcohol misuse among college students, numerous intervention programs have been developed, including personalized normative feedback (PNF). Most research evaluating PNF assumes that presenting one's own perceived norms is necessary to correct normative misperceptions and thereby reduce drinking. Alternatively, simply pr...

Exercise provides a wealth of benefits to brain and body, and is regarded as a protective factor against disease. Protective factors tend to cluster together – that is, people who engage in one healthy behavior, such as exercise, also engage in other healthy behaviors, such as maintaining a nutritious diet and getting sufficient sleep. In contrast...

Introduction: Individuals rate opposite sex faces as more attractive after consuming or being primed with alcohol. However, other traits such as intelligence and likeability have not been examined and might vary as a function of information about one's drinking habits. We expected social drinkers to be rated more positively than heavy drinkers, ab...

The present study evaluated cultural, ethnic, and gender differences in drinking and alcohol-related problems among Hispanic students. Familism protects against negative outcomes in Hispanic populations, thus we expected familism to buffer against alcohol problems. Participants (N = 623; 53% female) completed a battery of measures. Results suggeste...

The present study evaluates the relationships between shame, culture, and drinking behavior in predicting drinking intentions in the context of an expressive writing intervention. Theory and empirical findings have generally found that shame is maladaptive and can lead to anxiety, depression, and problematic alcohol use. However, research on cultur...

The present research examined how various locations and companions were associated with hazardous drinking during 21st birthday celebrations. The sample included 912 college students (57% female) who completed an online survey to examine 21st birthday drinking. Locations included bars, friends' houses, restaurants, outdoor barbecues, homes, parents...

Background The current study evaluated the roles of drinking motives and shyness in predicting problem alcohol use over 2 years. Methods First‐year college student drinkers (n = 818) completed assessments of alcohol use and related problems, shyness, and drinking motives every 6 months over a 2‐year period. Results Generalized linear mixed models...

Expressive writing interventions have shown positive physical and psychological health benefits over time, with the presumed mechanism being emotional disclosure. However, work utilizing expressive writing in behavior change has been minimal. The current research applied the expressive writing paradigm to reduce drinking intentions among college st...

The detrimental effect of ambivalence over emotional expression (AEE) on social support has been well-documented. However, the underlying mechanism of this effect remains unclear. Research has demonstrated that when general needs are not met, negative psychological outcomes occur. Thus, the current study investigated general needs satisfaction (GNS...

The current study investigated whether religious coping would moderate the association between ambivalence over emotional expression (AEE) and depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms such that the positive relationship between AEE and depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms would be weaker among those higher in religious coping. Three-hundred and...

This study evaluated pet affinity as a buffer between ambivalence over emotional expression (AEE) and social support. AEE occurs when one desires to express emotions but is reluctant to do so and is related to negative psychological outcomes. Individuals high in AEE may have difficulty receiving social support and thus may not gain accompanying ben...

Background: 21st birthday celebrations are among the highest risks for alcohol use throughout emerging adulthood and celebrants often experience a range of alcohol-related consequences. Objectives: The present research considered what happens when drinking games are paired with an already high-risk event (i.e., 21st birthday celebrations) and ho...

This study evaluates associations between coping drinking motives (CDM; drinking to regulate negative affect), depressive symptoms, and drinking behavior and extends the literature by also taking into account gender differences. Two hundred forty-three college students (Mean age = 22.93, SD = 6.29, 82 % female) participated. Based on previous resea...

This study evaluated self-control in the relationship between drinking identity and drinking. We expected those higher in drinking identity would drink more than those lower in drinking identity, particularly if low in self-control. Data were collected in 2012 via an online survey (N = 690 undergraduates, M age = 22.87, SD = 5.37, 82.50% female) at...

Previous work has indicated that implicit attentional biases to alcohol-related cues are indicative of susceptibility to alcohol dependence and escape drinking, or drinking to avoid dysphoric mood or emotions. The goal of the current study was to examine whether alcohol dependence and escape drinking were associated with early neural attentional bi...

This study evaluated benefit finding as a moderator of the relationship between spiritual and religious attitudes and drinking. Previous research indicates that undergraduates who drink heavily experience negative alcohol-related consequences. Literature also suggests that spirituality and religiosity (S/R) are protective against heavy drinking (e....

Children who have a parent who smokes are more likely to begin smoking than their peers who do not have a family history of smoking behavior. The goal of this study was to explore a potential mechanism to explain this relationship. It was hypothesized that college-age nonsmokers who have smoking parents would express an attentional bias for smoking...