Evaluating Change in Drinking Identity as a Mechanism for Reducing Hazardous Drinking - Study 2
Condition: Drinking; Excess, Habit (Continual); Identity, Social
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of the proposed research is to evaluate whether changes in drinking identity (DI;
      how much one associates one's self with drinking) can reduce hazardous drinking (HD; heavy
      alcohol use and negative alcohol-related consequences) among current college students. The
      study seeks to explore whether manipulating DI among participants will have changes in
      self-efficacy, craving, and HD. If such an effect can be found, DI may be a mechanism for HD
      behavior change and will allow researchers to develop and improve interventions aimed at HD
      behaviors in high-risk young adults.
    

Detailed description: 
      Experimentally manipulate DI to increase self-efficacy, decrease alcohol craving and reduce
      HD. We will recruit 328 student hazardous drinkers and use an expressive writing task to
      manipulate their DI, the salience of their social network, and their writing perspective. The
      last factor is included because writing in a self-distanced (3rd person) vs. self-immersed
      (1st person) perspective has been linked to greater cognitive control. We will evaluate the
      manipulation's immediate effects on DI, self-efficacy, and craving. Participants will also
      complete two weekly follow-up "booster" sessions. Longer-term effects on DI, self-efficacy,
      craving and HD will be evaluated at additional 2-week, 1-month, and 3-month follow-ups.

      With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, new subject enrollment was paused between March
      and September 2020. In light of the continued COVID-19 pandemic, the study team made the
      decision to move the in-person, lab-based session (where participants completed the writing
      task) to online sessions as of October 2020. With the move to online sessions, we have
      discontinued the cue reactivity task and the accompanying craving assessment. Inclusion
      criteria have shifted slightly -- we now explicitly require participants to be currently
      living in Washington State (this criterion was implicit in our previous criteria and
      procedures) . The structure of the study otherwise remains the same.
    

Intervention name(s): Narrative Writing
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): An writing task in which participants are given a description of a possible future self (that varies 3 factors: topic; drinking vs. smartphone; perspective: 1st vs. 3rd-person; and social network: specifically asked to be included vs. not specifically asked to be included). Participants are asked to imagine that future self vividly and to write about the thoughts and feeling describe themselves and their experiences, the characteristics they hope or wish they will ideally possess, the characteristics that they would need to have and the roles they will take on or things they will be doing. Participants are given 20 minutes to think and write. They will write and think about the same future on each of three lab-sessions (which occur at 1-week intervals).
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Factorial Assignment
Intervention model description: Participants are randomly assigned to a condition to receive one of eight writing prompt variants in a 2x2x2 study design. There is also a within subjects component as participants complete the same writing prompt 3 times (once per week over a 3-week period).
Masking: Single (Investigator)
Primary purpose: Other
Keywords: Drinking identity; Hazardous drinking; Social networks; Self-efficacy; Alcohol craving; Cognitive control; Narrative writing