Novel perspectives on the affect regulation hypothesis of substance use: Introduction to special issue
Abstract
Objective: The affect regulation hypothesis, the proposition that people use substances to manage how they feel, has organized addiction science for decades, yet empirical support varies markedly across methods. This special issue was assembled to examine the hypothesis through novel theory, rigorous empirical tests, and synthesis of existing evidence. Method: We introduce twelve contributions spanning theoretical proposals, (placebo-)controlled laboratory experiments, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), and longitudinal, cross-sectional, and qualitative designs. The studies address alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, and gambling across various populations, including recently suicidal psychiatric patients, pregnant adults, sexual and gender minority young women, Black men, and treatment-seeking individuals. We organize the contributions into five themes: affect regulation as a person-level vulnerability, laboratory tests of the hypothesis, real-time tests of negative reinforcement, studies of positive reinforcement, and an extension beyond substances. Results: Across contributions, no simple global verdict emerges. Within-person negative reinforcement was evident in some operationalizations, populations, and contexts but not others; positive affect and its dysregulation were more consistent correlates of use than negative affect; motive-response associations were substantially driven by expectancies; and affect regulation extended to gambling. Findings frequently diverged by substance and by timescale of measurement. Conclusions: The evidence summarized here supports not a refutation but a refinement of the hypothesis; one in which positive affect is at least as central as negative affect, and populations, timescales, expectancies, and context matter substantially.
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BibTeX
@misc{dora2026novel,
title = {{Novel perspectives on the affect regulation hypothesis of substance use: Introduction to special issue}},
author = {Jonas Dora and Andrea M. Wycoff and Jack Waddell and Andrea Howard and Kevin King},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/pc29n_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/pc29n_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Novel perspectives on the affect regulation hypothesis of substance use: Introduction to special issue
AU - Jonas Dora
AU - Andrea M. Wycoff
AU - Jack Waddell
AU - Andrea Howard
AU - Kevin King
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/pc29n_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/pc29n_v1/
AB - Objective: The affect regulation hypothesis, the proposition that people use substances to manage how they feel, has organized addiction science for decades, yet empirical support varies markedly across methods. This special issue was assembled to examine the hypothesis through novel theory, rigorous empirical tests, and synthesis of existing evidence. Method: We introduce twelve contributions spanning theoretical proposals, (placebo-)controlled laboratory experiments, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), and longitudinal, cross-sectional, and qualitative designs. The studies address alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, and gambling across various populations, including recently suicidal psychiatric patients, pregnant adults, sexual and gender minority young women, Black men, and treatment-seeking individuals. We organize the contributions into five themes: affect regulation as a person-level vulnerability, laboratory tests of the hypothesis, real-time tests of negative reinforcement, studies of positive reinforcement, and an extension beyond substances. Results: Across contributions, no simple global verdict emerges. Within-person negative reinforcement was evident in some operationalizations, populations, and contexts but not others; positive affect and its dysregulation were more consistent correlates of use than negative affect; motive-response associations were substantially driven by expectancies; and affect regulation extended to gambling. Findings frequently diverged by substance and by timescale of measurement. Conclusions: The evidence summarized here supports not a refutation but a refinement of the hypothesis; one in which positive affect is at least as central as negative affect, and populations, timescales, expectancies, and context matter substantially.
ER -