Finally, as expected, the association between PTS symptom severity and marijuana use coping motives diminished significantly with the inclusion of DT in the model (β decreased from .27 to .12; sr2 decreased from .10 to .01), suggesting that lower levels of DT partially accounted for the PTS-marijuana use coping motives association. Although the inclusion of DT in the model rendered the PTS-marijuana use coping motives association statistically non-significant, the current results support partial rather than full mediation, as the beta weight did not decrease to zero (Kenny et al., 1998). This finding suggests that perceived tolerance of emotional distress may be an important cognitive-affective mechanism underlying the PTS-marijuana use coping motives association. Theoretically, it is possible that a lower perceived capacity to withstand emotional distress may explain the tendency for trauma-exposed individuals with higher levels of PTS symptoms to use marijuana for coping reasons. As this is the first study to examine DT and marijuana use motives among trauma-exposed individuals, these results should be interpreted as preliminary support for the proposed mediational model of the relations between PTS symptom severity
