Associations of developmental imbalance between sensation seeking and premeditation in adolescence and heavy episodic drinking in emerging adulthood

Abstract

Background: Dual systems theories suggest that greater imbalance between higher reward sensitivity and lower cognitive control across adolescence conveys risk for behaviors such as heavy episodic drinking (HED). Prior research demonstrated that psychological analogues of these systems, sensation seeking and premeditation, change from childhood through emerging adulthood, and each has been independently linked with HED. However, few studies have assessed whether change over time in these developing analogues is prospectively associated with HED. Moreover, we know of no research that has shown whether within-person differences between higher sensation seeking and relatively lower premeditation across the adolescent period predict HED in emerging adulthood.

Methods: Prospective data from the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence study (n = 715) were used to examine the association of sensation seeking and premeditation with HED among adolescents ages 16 to 20 years. We used novel applications of latent difference score modeling and growth curve analysis to test whether increasing sensation seeking, premeditation, and their imbalance over time are associated with HED across the study period, and whether these associations differed by sex.

Results: Whereas premeditation increased linearly from adolescence through emerging adulthood across sexes, males reported growth and females reported decline in sensation seeking. Sensation seeking in adolescence (and not premeditation) was associated with higher levels of HED by emerging adulthood. Importantly, greater imbalance between sensation seeking and premeditation was associated with higher levels of HED by emerging adulthood though we note that variability capturing this imbalance correlated highly (r = 0.86) with baseline levels of sensation seeking.

Conclusions: Developmental imbalance between higher sensation seeking and lower premeditation in late adolescence may be a risk factor for greater HED in emerging adulthood.

Keywords: adolescence; alcohol use; dual systems; impulse control; sensation seeking.

FIGURE 1

Latent difference score growth model. Note. PRE, UPPS Premeditation; SS, UPPS Sensation Seeking; DI, Developmental Imbalance; HED, Past Year Heavy Episodic Drinking Frequency. All coefficients presented indicate unstandardized values. Bolded values and arrows indicate significant path coefficients. Factor loadings for the developmental imbalance slope factor were [0 1 2 3] (i.e., the intercept was set to age 17 years). Loading for the HED slope factor was [3 −2 −1 0] (i.e., the intercept was set to age 20 years). Covariate effects (SES, sex, and race) and factor loadings for manifest indicators of sensation seeking and premeditation at each age were omitted for parsimony

FIGURE 2

Relation between latent measures of adolescent developmental imbalance and young adult heavy episodic drinking. Note. Latent heavy episodic drinking and developmental imbalance measures are unit standardized. Developmental imbalance scores reflect latent within-person differences in sensation seeking relative to one's level of premeditation. Latent variable point values for each observation were generated using the "lavPredict" function in "lavaan" following guidelines provided by Hallgren et al. (2019). Predicted values (i.e., black line) and their 95% confidence regions were generated via parametric bootstrap (i.e., Monte Carlo simulation; King, Tomz, & Wittenberg, 2000)