Self-critical perfectionism and daily drinking to cope with negative emotional experiences among college students

Abstract

The present study builds upon prior studies of perfectionism and drinking to cope to examine the role of self-critical perfectionism in the association between daily drinking to cope and negative emotional experiences (low positive affect and high negative affect). We analyzed data from 102 undergraduate student drinkers who completed a 7-day daily diary, reflecting at the end of their day each day on their affect and drinking motives. Multilevel modeling results indicated that, consistent with hypotheses, self-critical perfectionism and daily positive affect interacted to predict daily drinking to cope. As expected, we observed no difference in drinking to cope between individuals high and low in self-critical perfectionism at high positive affect (associated with lower levels of drinking to cope). Yet, also as hypothesized, at low levels of positive affect, individuals higher in self-critical perfectionism reported higher levels of drinking to cope than those lower in self-critical perfectionism. Individuals were also more likely to drink to cope with high negative affect compared to low negative affect, although the interaction with self-critical perfectionism was not supported. These results suggest that it is important to consider the impact of specific emotional states on coping, specifically drinking to cope behavior among self-critical perfectionists.