Negative Urgency: An Affect-Based Predisposition to Rash Action

Introduction: Negative Urgency (NU), the tendency to act rashly under conditions of negative affect, has been shown to be related concurrently to a variety of negative outcomes, including substance use and abuse, antisocial behavior, disordered eating, borderline personality disorder, and self-harm and suicide. Despite the emerging importance of this construct, a number of questions remain, namely its distinctiveness from other personality pathways to impulsive behavior, its relations to substance use across time, its biological underpinnings and it’s utility as a targeting variable for preventive interventions.

Methods: Over 500 young adult college students, oversampled for risk for substance use, were followed over three years. Data were collected on a variety of impulsivity indicators, substance use and other externalizing behavior, and psychophysiological responses to reward and punishment. Analyses were conducted to address several basic questions about the role of NU in substance use. Namely, we examined 1) the distinctiveness of NU from other impulsivity-related dimensions, 2) the incremental utility of NU in predicting a number of negative outcomes, and 3) the ability of NU to predict onset and escalation in substance use across time.

Results: Confirmatory factor analyses supported NU as a construct distinct from other impulsivity-related traits. Structural equation modeling revealed incremental predictive validity for NU in predicting a broad externalizing factor comprised of antisocial behavior, risky sex, and substance abuse. Using group-based trajectory modeling, NU was found to be related to specific trajectories of substance use across time.

Conclusions: The present results provide support for the utility and distinctiveness of NU in predicting substance use across time. Possible biological underpinnings and future prevention intervention directions will be discussed.