Does level of social engagement mediate the relationship between conflicted shyness and substance use?

ndividual differences in shyness and sociability have been implicated in the development of substance use problems. Individuals who are high on shyness and sociability (i.e., conflicted shyness) are at an elevated risk for developing substance use difficulties. Researchers speculate that individuals with conflicted shyness likely rely on substances to cope with their anxiety created in social situations, although this has never been directly tested. The COVID-19 pandemic provides the opportunity to examine the mechanism through which conflicted shyness is related to substance use because there have likely been significant changes in individuals' levels of social engagement. The proposed study will use a mediated regression analysis to examine whether changes in levels of social engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic mediate the relation between conflicted shyness and substance use. An independent sample of undergraduate students will be asked to complete an online survey and retrospectively report their level of social engagement and their degree of substance use at two different time points: before the COVID-19 shut down and during the height of wave 1 of the pandemic. The online survey will also measure shyness and sociability to index conflicted shyness. We predict that conflicted shyness would be related to reductions in substance use in the context of decreasing levels of social engagement. The findings of this study will provide important insight into specific risk factors of substance use, which can inform prevention techniques and treatment interventions for substance use problems. Moreover, the results will empirically evaluate a longstanding hypothesis related to the mechanism underlying the relation between conflicted shyness and substance use.