Does it work and does it last? Effects of social and drinking behavior on same- and next-day mood

Both social and drinking behavior have the potential to modify mood. However, if social drinking enhances positive mood and reduces negative mood, as compared to non-drinking social behavior, then interventions to reinforce non-drinking via sober social activity are undermined. Using multilevel modeling analyses, we compared end-of-day mood on drinking days versus non-drinking days, and on days spent with other people as compared to days spent primarily alone. We evaluated the interaction between drinking/non-drinking and social/solitary behavior and assessed whether the effects of social and drinking behavior extended to mood the next day. Participants were 352 college students (53% female; 55% fraternity/sorority membership; mean age 19.7 years) who completed three automated telephone surveys each day during four 14-day intervals over 1 year. Drinking and being social were associated with higher end-of-day positive mood and significantly lower end-of-day negative mood. However, no positive enhancement or negative attenuation effects of alcohol were observed in interaction analyses. Alcohol provided no improvement in mood over-and-above being social at the end of the day or on the following day. However, drinking the previous day significantly reduced next-day positive mood, whereas being social significantly reduced next-day negative mood. These findings provide support for the reinforcing potential of interventions that increase rewarding social activity in the place of alcohol use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)