Differential effects of urgency and sensation seeking on cannabis use and related problems via motives
Authors: Falco Caitlin , Looby Allison ,   The Stimulant Norms and Prevalence Study Team
Published: March 2022

A reliable predictor of substance use is impulsivity, a multidimensional construct in which specific facets demonstrate differential associations with aspects of substance use. Though research has delineated the association between substance use and impulsivity generally, work examining facets and their relation to cannabis use specifically is more limited. Additionally, motivational models of substance use suggest that an individual’s reasons for use are the most proximal predictors of substance use, serving as a mediating mechanism by which other variables operate to influence use and related behaviors. To obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying cannabis use, the current study assessed the relation between three facets of impulsivity that have demonstrated compelling associations with cannabis (i.e., positive urgency, negative urgency; and sensation seeking) and their association with frequency of cannabis use and related consequences via motives. College students (N = 652, Mage = 19.59, 72.2% female) from seven universities that reported past-month cannabis use completed an online survey assessing frequency of past-month cannabis use, number of related problems, facets of impulsivity, and cannabis use motives. A bootstrapped path analysis was conducted, in which negative urgency, positive urgency, and sensation seeking were modeled as simultaneous predictors of past-month cannabis-related problems via parallel mediators of enjoyment, coping, and social anxiety motives, and via past-month days of cannabis use. Positive and negative urgency were significant mediators in the same pathways: 1) social anxiety motives positively mediated the association between urgency and frequency of past-month cannabis use (negative urgency: β=0.37, 95% CI [0.046, 0.86]; positive urgency: β=0.87, 95% CI [0.44, 1.43]); 2) coping motives positively mediated the association between urgency and cannabis-related problems (negative urgency: β=0.47, 95% CI [0.28, 0.71]; positive urgency: β=0.31, 95% CI [0.11, 0.55]; and 3) a serial mediation effect such that urgency was positively associated with anxiety motives, which in turn were associated with higher frequency of past-month use, which was associated with greater cannabis-related problems (negative urgency: β=0.05, 95% CI [0.01, 0.12]; positive urgency: β=0.12, 95% CI [0.06, 0.21]). Further, two indirect effects were found for sensation seeking: 1) enjoyment motives positively mediated the association between sensation seeking and frequency of past-month use (β=0.23, 95% CI [0.40, 0.53]); and 2) a serial mediation effect such that sensation seeking was positively associated with enjoyment motives, which in turn were associated with higher frequency of past-month use, which in turn was associated with greater cannabis-related problems (β=0.03, 95% CI [0.005, 0.01]). Results appear to suggest that individuals high in urgency using to avoid or cope with negative affect or social anxiety and individuals high in sensation seeking endorsing use to feel good or enhance mood may be at greater risk of cannabis-related problems, providing evidence that cannabis use a means of improving emotional experience may not be an adequate emotion regulation strategy.