Although the relation between impulsive-irresponsible psychopathic traits and substance use is well-documented, the path to developing substance use problems is less understood in adolescents with these characteristics.
To examine the associations between psychopathy, anxiety, and substance use motives and a mechanism by which anxiety and alcohol and marijuana coping motives mediate the relation between psychopathic traits and substance use-related problems.
A sample of 185 at-risk adolescent males from a residential military-style program reporting past alcohol or marijuana use (M age = 16.74) participated in the study.
Impulsive-Irresponsible psychopathic traits were uniquely and incrementally predictive of alcohol and marijuana use-related problems and anxiety. Anxiety and coping motives appeared to partially explain the association between impulsivity-irresponsibility and substance use-related problems.
Findings suggest that youth expressing impulsive-irresponsible psychopathic traits may engage in problematic substance use at least partly as a function of heightened anxiety and a subsequent desire to alleviate distress by using alcohol or marijuana to cope.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 November 2016.
All research outputs
#17,349,426
of 27,866,238 outputs
Outputs from Substance Use & Misuse
#1,341
of 2,251 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#177,276
of 315,125 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Substance Use & Misuse
#40
of 68 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,866,238 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,251 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.3. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 68 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
