This study evaluated additive and interactive associations of genetic factors (COMT, ALDH2) and implicit drinking motives with drinking behavior. The most notable findings concerned moderating effects of genotype on the association of automatic drinking motives with drinking outcomes. Specifically, associations of implicit coping motives with drinking behavior were strongest in the context of genetic variants associated with relatively higher risk for alcohol use (COMT Met and ALDH2*1) and negligible in the context of variants associated with lower risk (COMT Val and ALDH2*2). This pattern of results was less consistent for implicit enhancement motives, which interacted with COMT genotype in only one instance. Overall, the results offer preliminary evidence for the possibility that genetic risk or protective factors might potentiate or mitigate the influence of reflexive processes on drinking behavior, thereby representing possible “boundary conditions” (Hofmann et al., 2009) that might moderate the extent to which impulsive cognitive processes predict behavior.
