A survey of 446 adults tested whether the urge to drink, expected pleasure, and reasons such as coping or socializing point to distinct patterns of alcohol use and readiness for change.
Study: Self-reported wanting and drinking motives in relation to alcohol use. Image Credit: Master1305 / Shutterstock
In a recent cross-sectional study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers explored how people's reported desire to drink relates to their reasons for consuming alcohol. Consistent with theories proposing that drinking motivation can vary across contexts, the study found particularly strong associations between self-reported wanting to drink, coping drinking motives, and problematic alcohol use. Based on the findings, the motivational pull toward alcohol may be particularly closely linked to internally driven motives, especially coping with negative emotions, in imagined drinking situations.
Alcohol consumption contributes to disability and premature death worldwide. Understanding the cognitive-affective and motivational factors that shape alcohol consumption could help guide treatment and prevention efforts. Yet, how these cognitive-affective processes relate to the different reasons people turn to alcohol remains unclear. Seeking pleasure, coping with negative emotions, and socializing may all influence alcohol-related behavior and the severity of alcohol-related problems.
About the study
In the present exploratory study, researchers examined how self-reported wanting, liking, and responses to situation-specific imagined scenarios were related to Cooper’s four drinking motives and intentions to quit or reduce drinking. They also examined how wanting and liking were associated with different motives in imagined drinking situations.
The team conducted an online survey, recruiting participants through paid advertisements on Facebook. Participants were asked to imagine hypothetical situations and report anticipated reactions. Of the 843 individuals who completed the survey, respondents who completed the questionnaire faster than a minimum threshold of approximately 2 seconds per item were excluded, while those with partial wanting or liking data were retained where possible. After data preparation, 446 participants remained in the final dataset.
Using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), the researchers assessed the frequency and severity of alcohol-related problems among the participants. The Drinking Motives Questionnaire–Revised Short Form (DMQ-R-SF) was used to assess drinking motives, while the Imaginative Wanting and Liking Questionnaire (IWLQ) was used to assess participants’ self-reported wanting and liking in imagined drinking situations.
The researchers also used situation-specific items to reflect the four DMQ components: enhancement, coping, social, and conformity. They also examined whether wanting and liking were linked to different drinking motives and explored factors associated with the intention to quit or reduce drinking. Participants reported whether they planned to quit or reduce drinking, when they planned to do so, and how important this goal was to them. The researchers then compared how wanting and liking were associated with the different drinking motives and alcohol-use severity.
Results and discussion
After data preparation, 251 women, 187 men, and eight participants who selected the “other” category were included (mean age, 44 years). The mean AUDIT score was 8.34, and the authors described the non-clinical sample as having relatively moderate levels of alcohol use. The group was generally well educated, with 210 participants holding university degrees and 117 having a high school education. The remaining participants had elementary or vocational education.
The analysis showed that self-reported wanting was more strongly linked to drinking motives than self-reported liking. This difference was especially evident for internal motives and motive-specific imagined situations. Wanting was more strongly associated with coping motives than with enhancement, social, or conformity motives. Liking showed positive associations with enhancement and social motives, but not coping or conformity motives.
The analysis also linked wanting to a greater intention to quit or reduce drinking. Higher AUDIT scores were linked to greater wanting, greater liking during imagined alcohol consumption, and stronger drinking motives, but to lower liking after imagined consumption. In the structural model, wanting was associated with all drinking motives, while liking showed positive associations with enhancement and social motives only. In the situation-specific analyses, wanting was most strongly associated with coping and enhancement motives, while liking was associated only with social motivation.
All drinking motive domains except conformity were positively associated with AUDIT scores. Wanting and coping motives each showed direct positive associations with AUDIT scores. Higher AUDIT scores, coping motives, and wanting were linked to stronger intentions to change their drinking. Enhancement motives and liking were associated with weaker intentions, whereas social and conformity motives were not significant predictors. These findings are consistent with Incentive Sensitization Theory (IST), which proposes that repeated substance use can strengthen motivational wanting while liking remains stable or declines. The study did not directly measure incentive sensitization or changes caused by repeated alcohol use.
The link between wanting and affect-related motives may indicate that this motivational drive is particularly relevant when alcohol is used to regulate emotions. The different patterns seen with coping and enhancement motives may also reflect differences in how people recognize their drinking as problematic and consider changing it.
Conclusion
The findings suggest that wanting and liking are both related to motivational aspects of alcohol use, with wanting more closely linked to the different motivational factors associated with alcohol consumption and alcohol-use severity, while liking appears to be related to a narrower set of drinking motives.
The cross-sectional design cannot establish the direction of these associations or their cause, and the study relied on self-reported responses to imagined rather than actual drinking situations. The situation-specific items were newly developed and had not undergone formal psychometric validation, and Facebook recruitment may limit how representative the sample is.
In future studies, researchers could follow participants over longer periods using daily diaries or repeated laboratory sessions to better understand these relationships. Including people with severe alcohol use disorders could broaden the relevance of the findings. Repeated assessments in everyday settings, along with controlled experiments, could also reveal situation-specific changes in drinking motivation.
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