The extant literature suggests that negative emotionality may increase risk for MDD and other internalizing psychopathology, as distress and negative affect are central to these disorders (Clark & Watson, 1991; Eaton et al. 2011). In contrast, evidence suggests that negative emotionality increases risk for AUD by way of coping motives and alcohol use as a means of affect regulation (Cooper et al. 1995), which may then increase liability for alcohol-related consequences. Supporting this relation, longitudinal research has found that changes in coping-related drinking motives mediate the association between changes in neuroticism and alcohol-related problems (Littlefield et al. 2010), and genetically-informed research has shown that coping-related drinking motives mediate the genetic overlap between neuroticism and alcohol-related problems (Littlefield et al. 2011).
