Effects of Depressed Mood on Drinking Refusal Self-Efficacy: Examining the Specificity of Drinking Contexts

College students with elevated depressive symptoms are more likely to engage in risky drinking and experience alcohol-related negative consequences. Efforts to understand the association between depressed mood and alcohol use have begun to identify the role of cognitive-motivational processes. Drinking refusal self-efficacy is one such process that influences the decision to drink, but its relationship with depressed mood remains unclear. The current study sought to clarify the role of these processes using a depressed mood induction procedure in a sample of college student drinkers. Eighty-six students were randomized to a depressed or neutral mood induction and completed assessments of drinking refusal self-efficacy. Depressed mood significantly decreased self-efficacy in high-risk drinking contexts related to depression, whereas ratings of other high-risk contexts were unaffected. These findings suggest that the association between hazardous drinking and depressed mood may be due in part to the direct influence of mood state on one's self-efficacy to resist drinking in relevant contexts.