Substance Use, Decision Making, and Risky Behaviors
There is an extensive literature on the relationship between substance use and engaging in harmful behaviors, injuries, and premature mortality. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1 in 10 deaths can be attributed to excessive alcohol consumption. In this area of research, we are particularly interested in (a) identifying the factors the lead individuals to engage in the risky or harmful behaviors (especially when intoxicated), (b) understanding the decisional processes leading up to the problems behaviors, and (c) how these decisional biases can be corrected. The harmful and risky behaviors we are interested include:
1. Violence perpetration and victimization, such as sexual assault and intimate partner violence 2. Injury and accidents, which includes decisions to drive under the influence. 3. Sexual risky behaviors such as engaging in unprotected sex. In addition, we are also interested in the decisions to continue using substances despite experiencing overwhelming substance use-related problems. |
Alcohol, Decision Making, and Sexual Aggression
Depending on definitions, 29% to 39% of college women reported to have experienced attempted or completed sexual assault and rape (Koss et al., 1987; Krebs et al., 2007), much higher than the 18% lifetime prevalence in the general population (National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998). On the other hand, in a nationally representative sample of higher education students, 25% of men report having perpetrated some form of sexual assault, of that 4% report having committed rape (Abbey, McAuslan, & Ross, 1998; Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987). Research also indicate that half of all sexual aggressive acts on college campus involve alcohol use, wherein one or both parties are intoxicated or within a context of drinking (Abbey, 2002; Abbey et al., 1998; Harrington & Leitenberg, 1994; Testa, 2002).
Stemming from the general interest I previously outlined, my current research focuses understanding the decisional processes involved in alcohol-involved sexual assault perpetration and victimization. Although I am interested in various distal factors such as rape-supportive and misogynistic attitudes (for risk of perpetration), prior sexual abuse, emotional dysregulation, and alexithymia (for risk of victimization), my focus is on understanding how decisions are made during sexual situations, what variables bias these decisions, how alcohol impairs decisions, and how these decisional biases eventually impact perpetration and victimization. In addition to survey methodologies, I utilize two novel methodologies to further understand these decision biases. First, we adapted a date-rape methodology (with a corresponding statistical analytical technique) to understand how decisions are made as sexual assault unfolds (see Tuliao, Hoffman, & McChargue, 2016). Second, we adapted the MouseLabWEB to understand how individuals search for information in the environment (see Tuliao, McChargue, & Klanecky, in press). The Figure on the right is one such example of our decision task, where male college students are instructed to select females' characteristics. Our research suggests that at risk males (i.e., those who previously perpetrated and those with high rape supportive attitudes) were more likely to look for information relevant to sexual assault perpetration (e.g., drunk or dressed provocatively). |
Substance use and related problems are global issues. For instance, between 6% to 25% of premature death, injury, and disability worldwide can be attributed to excessive alcohol consumption (World Health Organization, 2014). Despite the global problem, most of what we know is based on studies from Western Industrialized Nations, oftentimes with majority Caucasian sample. There is also limited research regarding the generalizability of various measurements and theoretical models to other countries or to other cultural groups. Understanding cultural factors that underlie substance use and substance use-related harm is one of my research interest, which I aim to address using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The current CRAVE study aims to further examine the cultural differences in substance use and related harm among U.S. and Filipino college students. This research endeavor would not be possible without the help from collaborators from the U.S. (Dennis E. McChargue & Alicia Klanecky) and the Philippines (Bernice Vania Landoy).