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Reinout W Wiers

Publications and source records attributed to Reinout W Wiers.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

A functional polymorphism of the mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) influences cue-induced craving for alcohol in male heavy drinkers.

BACKGROUND: The mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) codes for the mu-opioid receptor, which binds beta-endorphin. The A118G polymorphism in this gene affects beta-endorphin binding such that the Asp40 variant (G allele) binds beta-endorphin 3 times more tightly than the more common Asn40 variant (A allele). This study investigated the influence of the A118G polymorphism on cue reactivity after exposure to an alcoholic beverage in male heavy drinkers. METHODS: Participants were either homozygous for the A allele (n=84) or carrying at least 1 copy of the G allele (n=24). All participants took part in a cue-reactivity paradigm where they were exposed to water and beer in 3-minute trials. The dependent variables of main interest were subjective craving for alcohol, subjective arousal, and saliva production. RESULTS: G allele carriers reported significantly more craving for alcohol than the A allele participants (as indicated by the within-subject difference in craving after beer vs after water exposure). No differences were found for subjective arousal and saliva. Both groups did not differ in family history of alcoholism. Participants with the G allele reported a significantly higher lifetime prevalence of drug use than participants homozygous for the A allele. CONCLUSIONS: A stronger urge to drink alcohol after exposure to an alcoholic beverage might contribute to a heightened risk for developing alcohol-related problems in individuals with a copy of the G allele. The G allele might also predispose to drug use in general.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Explicit and implicit alcohol-related cognitions and the prediction of future drinking in adolescents.

Both implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions might play a role in the early development of addictive behaviors. In this study, the association between both current and prospective alcohol use and implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions were measured in two different adolescent age groups (N=100; 51 twelve year olds, 49 fifteen year olds). Alcohol-related cognitions were measured on two dimensions (valence and arousal). A new measure, the unipolar Single Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT), was used as the implicit measure. A unipolar expectancy questionnaire was used as the explicit measure. Current alcohol use and alcohol use after one year were measured with an alcohol use questionnaire. Abstainers and drinkers differed in both their explicit and implicit alcohol-related cognitions moderated by age and gender. Additionally, a hierarchical regression analysis showed that implicit associations with alcohol added significantly to the prediction of prospective binge drinking, when controlling for grade, gender and explicit alcohol expectancies These results indicate the importance of taking implicit alcohol-related cognitions into account when intervention methods are developed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Automatic and controlled processes and the development of addictive behaviors in adolescents: a review and a model.

This paper presents a review and a model of the development of addictive behaviors in (human) adolescents, with a focus on alcohol. The model proposes that addictive behaviors develop as the result of an imbalance between two systems: an appetitive, approach-oriented system that becomes sensitized with repeated alcohol use and a regulatory executive system that is not fully developed and that is compromised by exposure to alcohol. Self-regulation critically depends on two factors: ability and motivation to regulate the appetitive response tendency. The motivational aspect is often still weak in heavy drinking adolescents, who typically do not recognize their drinking as problematic. Motivation to regulate use often develops only years later, after the individual has encountered serious alcohol-related problems. Unfortunately, at that point behavioral change becomes harder due to several neurocognitive adaptations that result from heavy drinking. As we document, there is preliminary support for the central elements of the model (appetitive motivation vs. self-regulation), but there is a paucity of research directly addressing these mechanisms in human adolescents. Further, we emphasize that adolescent alcohol use primarily takes place in a social context, and that therefore studies should not solely focus on intra-individual factors predicting substance use and misuse but also on interpersonal social factors. Finally, we discuss implications of the model for interventions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Implicit cognitive processes in psychopathology: an introduction.

Implicit or automatic processes are important in understanding the etiology and maintenance of psychopathological problems. In order to study implicit processes in psychopathology, measures are needed that are valid and reliable when applied to clinical problems. One of the main topics in this special issue concerns the development and validation of new or modified implicit tests in different domains of psychopathology. The other main topic concerns the prediction of clinical outcomes and new ways to directly influence implicit processes in psychopathology. We summarize the contributions to this special issue and discuss how they further our knowledge of implicit processes in psychopathology and how to measure them.

Association↗
PubMed2006

Implicit cocaine associations in active cocaine users and controls.

Implicit and explicit cocaine-related cognitions were assessed in a sample of 16 cocaine-dependent poly-substance abusers and 16 age, gender, and SES-matched controls. Implicit associations were assessed with four unipolar versions of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), assessing associations between cocaine and positive affect, negative affect, arousal and sedation, relative to the contrast category "sports". Explicit cognitions were assessed with a questionnaire using the same words as the IAT. As expected, cocaine users scored higher on explicit arousal and lower on explicit sedation expectancies than controls. Unexpectedly, cocaine users demonstrated strong associations between cocaine and sedation and between cocaine and positive valence (relative to sports). Both associations were not found in controls. It is discussed that these paradoxical findings could be related to properties of the IATs used or that they may reflect a similar quieting effect as demonstrated for stimulants in children with ADHD.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Using the Extrinsic Affective Simon Test as a measure of implicit attitudes towards alcohol: relationship with drinking behavior and alcohol problems.

In apparent contrast to the alleged importance of positive alcohol expectancies in alcohol (ab)use, a series of studies using the Implicit Association Test (IAT; [Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J.L.K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480]), found that heavy and light drinkers display more negative implicit attitudes toward alcohol than toward sodas (e.g., [Wiers, R. W., van Woerden, N., Smulders, F. T. Y., & de Jong, P. J. (2002). Implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions in heavy and light drinkers. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 648-658]). One explanation for this might be that the negative-alcohol IAT effect reflects an artifact of the IAT procedure and are due to its relative nature and/or its sensitivity to task recoding strategies. Therefore, the present study used a non-relative measure that has been argued to be robust against participants' task recoding strategies (Extrinsic Affective Simon Test; EAST, [De Houwer, J. (2001). A structural and process analysis of the Implicit Association Test. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 443-451]) to test heavy (n=16) and light (n=16) drinkers' automatic affective associations with alcohol and sodas. Heavy and light drinkers displayed clear positive associations with sodas and neutral (or ambivalent) automatic associations with alcohol. Importantly, positive automatic alcohol associations predicted unique variance of alcohol (mis)use and was the single best predictor of individuals' alcohol problems, underlining the idea that they do play a role in alcohol (mis)use.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

A test of the salience asymmetry interpretation of the alcohol-IAT.

Abstract. K. Rothermund and D. Wentura (2004) showed how Figure-Ground (FG) asymmetries produce effects on the Implicit Association Task (IAT), independent of associations. Here, the FG account was tested for the robust finding that drinkers show a negative alcohol-IAT effect while being positive on explicit measures. FG asymmetries were manipulated through familiarity of alcohol-IAT target categories and were assessed with visual search tasks. Supporting the FG account, the familiarity manipulation influenced the IAT effect in the expected direction, and the IAT effect correlated with FG asymmetries. Contrary to the FG account, however, the IAT effect was not reversed, and IAT effects were predicted by alcohol use but not by FG asymmetries. Hence, the FG account only partly explains the negative alcohol-IAT effect.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

From the laboratory to real life: a pilot study of an expectancy challenge with "heavy drinking" young people on holiday.

The Alcohol Expectancy Challenge (EC) is a promising program for changing alcohol expectancies and reducing alcohol consumption in "heavy drinking" young men in a bar-lab setting. In this study the EC was adapted for use in mixed-gender groups in a holiday setting and its feasibility tested in camping resorts in the Netherlands where a lot of binge drinking takes place (summer 2002). Male and female participants (N = 170; mean age, 18.8 years) were randomly assigned to an EC or to an assessment-only control group. One day before the intervention, alcohol expectancies were measured by a Visual Analogue Scale of arousal-sedation expectancies (VAS expectancies questionnaire). At the same time, alcohol use in everyday life and on holiday was assessed by a General Drinking Questionnaire and a 24-hour drinking diary, respectively. Twenty-four hours after the intervention, the VAS expectancies questionnaire was administered again and alcohol use over the previous 24 hours was reported in the drinking diary. Six weeks after the intervention, participants were telephoned and administered oral versions of the VAS expectancies questionnaire and General Drinking Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using mixed ANOVAs. Although the study was hampered by recruitment difficulties, the EC proved feasible in this setting, was well received by youngsters, and effects on their alcohol expectancies may have been present. No effect was found on alcohol use. In conclusion, implementation must be improved and more studies are needed to come to more definite conclusions about the value of the EC in a real-life targeted intervention.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

The search for new ways to change implicit alcohol-related cognitions in heavy drinkers.

This article summarizes a symposium on new ways to change implicit alcohol-related cognitions, presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Santa Barbara, California, organized by Wiers and Cox. During the past few years, research has demonstrated that implicit cognitions predict unique variance in prospective alcohol use and preliminary results indicate that they also predict treatment outcomes. The central question in this symposium was how implicit cognitions can be changed and how the changes will influence behavior. Field presented data showing that an attentional bias for alcohol can be altered by attentional training: heavy drinkers who were trained not to attend to alcohol stimuli reported less craving and drank less beer than those trained to attend to alcohol stimuli. Schoenmakers used a similar, clinically relevant attentional retraining (AR) procedure, heavy drinkers were trained not to attend to alcohol pictures or received no training. After the training, the AR group attended less to the alcohol pictures than the control group. Fadardi described the Alcohol Attentional Control Training Program (AACTP), which makes alcohol drinkers aware of the automatic, cognitive determinants of their drinking and aims to help them to gain control over these processes. Data were presented to support the effectiveness of the AACTP. Palfai presented data showing that alcohol drinkers can be taught to use implementation intentions to gain control over their drinking, which may be used to automatically activate self-control skills in the presence of alcohol cues. In his discussion, Stacy pointed out the importance of recent cognitive theories that integrate attention and memory processes-theories that can help us better understand the mechanisms involved in AR. Together, the studies presented demonstrate that there are promising new ways in which implicit alcohol-related cognitions and their effects on drinking can be changed. After further refinement, these procedures might be used in clinical interventions that have not previously addressed implicit cognitive processes.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed2006

Is the strength of implicit alcohol associations correlated with alcohol-induced heart-rate acceleration?

BACKGROUND: Heart rate (HR) acceleration during the ascending limb of the blood alcohol curve has proven to be a reliable measure of the sensitivity to the activating effects of alcohol. In this study, we investigated the correlation between an ethanol-induced cardiac change and the strength of implicit alcohol-related arousal and approach associations and attentional bias for alcohol-related stimuli in heavy drinkers. These 3 types of implicit alcohol-related cognitions have been proposed to reflect the strength of incentive sensitization that is experienced after repeated alcohol use. METHODS: Forty-eight heavy drinking men performed a modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure their implicit alcohol arousal and approach-avoidance associations. A modified version of the emotional Stroop was used to measure attentional bias for alcohol-related stimuli (blocked and unblocked). Next, a high dose of alcohol (1.0 mL/kg body weight 95% USP alcohol) was administered in a short period of time. Resting baseline HR, blood alcohol concentrations, mood, and craving for alcohol were assessed before alcohol administration and for 2 hours post-alcohol consumption. RESULTS: Contrary to our hypothesis, a negative association was found between implicit arousal associations and alcohol-induced HR change. This indicates that strong arousal associations were correlated with a decrease in alcohol-induced HR. Approach associations and attentional bias were not correlated with alcohol-induced HR change, but both were correlated positively with each other. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol-arousal associations and other implicit cognitions (attentional bias, approach associations) are not positively related to individual differences in the sensitivity to alcohol's activating effects, at least not in the present sample consisting primarily of family history-negative heavy drinkers.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Assessing implicit alcohol associations with the Implicit Association Test: fact or artifact?

Studies using bipolar Implicit Association Tests (IATs) found that heavy drinkers have negative and arousal associations with alcohol relative to soda. Study 1 examined whether these results were due to the label 'alcohol' and the choice of the contrast category 'soda'. Four unipolar IATs assessed alcohol associations with positive and negative valence, arousal, and sedation, while varying the target dimension: alcohol or beer versus soda or animals. Results showed that drinkers had the strongest associations between alcohol and negative valence with the exact strength depending on the choice of the target categories. They also showed associations between alcohol and positive valence, arousal, and to a lesser extent sedation, which were uninfluenced by composition of the target dimension. These findings indicate ambivalence in both the valence and arousal-sedation dimension, underscoring the importance of using unipolar alcohol-IATs. Further, study 2 showed that "figure-ground" asymmetries could not account for these IAT results. These findings provide support that implicit alcohol associations are not merely IAT artifacts and that they can be assessed in a meaningful way with unipolar IATs.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Implicit and explicit attitudes toward smoking in a smoking and a nonsmoking setting.

To test whether global smoking attitudes may be a driving factor in smoking behavior, Experiment 1 assessed smoking associations with the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Although smokers' attitudes (N=24) were less negative than those of nonsmokers (N=24), both displayed negative associations with smoking. To test whether these findings may be an artifact of measurement setting and/or the indirect measure that was used, Experiment 2 assessed attitudes in a smoking (N=20) or a nonsmoking setting (N=20) using the IAT and an Affective Simon Task. In both settings, negative attitudes emerged, suggesting that global (implicit) attitudes may be a moderating rather than a driving factor in smoking behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Context effects on alcohol cognitions.

This article summarizes a symposium on context and alcohol-related cognitions presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The studies reported here examine how the manipulation of contextual variables influences the availability of alcohol outcome expectancies and implicit memories for alcohol associations. The symposium illustrates the range of context variables and shows some of the potential impact of retrieval on cognitions that predict alcohol use. Two of the studies explore naturalistic drinking contexts: one examines the impact of stress induction, and one assesses within survey question placement effects. A variety of measures of alcohol cognitions were used. The results demonstrate that alcohol cognitions are more accessible in alcohol-related contexts. Moreover, availability of alcohol associations and expectancies depended on individual differences. These results underscore the potential value of memory processes in the retrieval and measurement of alcohol cognitions. The findings have direct implications for improving methods of predicting alcohol use and in understanding the role of alcohol cognitions in various contexts associated with alcohol use.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed2005

Challenging implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions in young heavy drinkers.

AIMS: To test whether an expectancy challenge (EC) changes implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions and binge drinking in young heavy drinkers. This is important for theoretical and practical reasons: the EC presents a critical test for the hypothesized mediational role of alcohol cognitions and the EC has been presented as a promising intervention to counter alcohol problems in heavy drinking youth. SETTING, PARTICIPANTS AND INTERVENTION: Ninety-two heavy drinking college and university students (half women) were assigned randomly to the EC or control condition (a sham alcohol experiment in the same bar-laboratory). MEASUREMENTS: Explicit alcohol cognitions and alcohol use were assessed with paper-and-pencil measures. Alcohol use was assessed prior to the experiment and during a 1-month follow-up. Implicit alcohol-related cognitions were assessed with two versions of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), adapted to assess implicit valence and arousal associations with alcohol. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS: The EC resulted in decreased explicit positive arousal expectancies in men and women alike. There was some evidence for a differential reduction in implicit arousal associations, but findings depended on the version of the IAT and on the scoring-algorithm used. In men (but not in women) there was a short-lived differential reduction in prospective alcohol use (significant in week 3 of the follow-up), and this reduction was partially mediated by the decrease in explicit positive arousal expectancies. These findings suggest that an EC successfully changes explicit alcohol cognitions and that this may have short-lived beneficial effects in heavy drinking young men.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

An experimental test of an alcohol expectancy challenge in mixed gender groups of young heavy drinkers.

Several studies have shown that a multisession experiential expectancy challenge successfully reduces positive alcohol expectancies and alcohol use in heavy drinking young men, but this has not been shown for heavy drinking young women. Main aim of this study was to test the effect of a multisession expectancy challenge in mixed gender groups of young heavy drinkers. Twenty-five (11 males) heavy drinking students were randomly assigned to the expectancy challenge or control condition (the challenge was adapted to be more suitable for women). Positive expectancies decreased significantly in the experimental but not in the control group. In the experimental group, positive expectancies decreased significantly more in women than in men, and alcohol use showed a statistical trend in the same direction. These findings are the first to indicate that a multisession expectancy challenge may result in reduced positive expectancies and alcohol consumption in young heavy drinking women. An important next question is whether a single experiential session could be effective because recruitment for a multisession challenge proved difficult, which is problematic for further implementation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

How to change implicit drug use-related cognitions in prevention: a transdisciplinary integration of findings from experimental psychopathology, social cognition, memory, and experimental learning psychology.

A recent study from our lab found that an intervention aimed at changing alcohol-related cognitions in heavy drinkers resulted in significant changes in explicit cognitions, in the absence of changes in implicit cognitions. This raised the question how implicit alcohol- and drug-related cognitions could successfully be changed. Here, the literature on changing implicit cognitions from four areas of research is reviewed: 1) memory research (resistance to change of implicit vs. explicit memories); 2) learning psychology (attempts to change learned associations); 3) experimental psychopathology (attempts to change an attentional bias); and 4) social cognition research (attempts to change implicit attitudes). Further, studies directly aimed at changing implicit drug-related cognitions are reviewed. From the integrative review, it is argued that it is important to consider the level of representation (i.e., specific vs. global) when comparing studies aimed at changing implicit cognitions: there is converging evidence that specific implicit cognitions and memories are resistant to change, whereas global implicit cognitions and memories appear to be more malleable. The results are integrated into an overall picture of what it takes to change implicit cognitions in general and what can be expected with respect to the effects of such a change on behavior, and how this could be used in alcohol-use and drug use-related preventive interventions.

Biomedical Research↗
PubMed2003

Effect of cue exposure, urge to smoke, and nicotine deprivation on cognitive performance in smokers.

The primary aim of this investigation was to test the hypothesis that the urge to smoke interferes directly with cognitive performance. Fifty-four smokers were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: (a). ad lib, (b). deprived, or (c). nicotine patch. Participants rated their urge to smoke on continuous visual analogue scales. Cognitive performance was determined by measuring reaction times (RTs) on a Sternberg task. The deprived group reported a higher urge and had longer RTs than the ad lib group when exposed to smoking-related cues. However, the nicotine patch group reported a higher urge in the absence of longer RTs. The results indicated that nicotine deprivation affects cognitive performance and that the urge to smoke only partially mediated RTs.

Adolescent↗