Autoconsciência privada, autorreflexão e insight como reguladores do consumo de álcool entre jovens e adultos

Abstract

Alcohol is the most consumed licit drug in Brazil. Particularly in relation to young people, there are strong correlations between abusive alcohol consumption patterns and the increase of damage and loss which is being experienced as a social problem. Environmental and individual factors may have a protective influence on people or alternatively increase their vulnerability to harmful consumption and consequences directly or indirectly associated with alcohol abuse. Among individual factors, private self-consciousness as a human tendency or willingness to focus attention on one's own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours may constitute a relevant metacognitive capacity in the process of behavioural regulation. In order to measure this capacity, the Self-Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS), an instrument of psychological assessment, quantifies two dimensions of private self-consciousness, namely, self-reflection and insight. While the first dimension assesses individuals' self-reflective and self-monitoring ability, the second evaluates a clear understanding about feelings, experiences or reasons for behaving in a certain way. In the Brazilian context, although alcohol consumption is an important and widely investigated sociocultural phenomenon, there was still no published data exploring its relationship with private self-consciousness, self-reflection and insight. This dissertation was developed to address this gap and presents its main results in two scientific papers. The first one refers to a systematic review of empirical studies that applied the SRIS, published between 2002 and 2017, and retrieved from the databases available in the Portal de Periódicos da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). The prevailing findings indicated that insight was associated with healthy and adaptive emotional, cognitive and behavioural reactions, and self-reflection proved to be inconsistent, relating to reactions that sometimes are beneficial or sometimes detrimental to cognitive performance, physical and psychological well-being and social interactions. Data indicated that selfreflection triggers the cycle of self-regulation, but insight is critical to its balanced progress. The second paper reports the results of a survey that was conducted with young people and adults, aged 20 to 39 years, as this cohort has rated highly in relation to abusive alcohol consumption and risky behaviours. A total of 523 Brazilians, who either completed or are in the process of completing undergraduate and/or postgraduate courses, participated by responding the SRIS Scale and the AUDIT test (for verifying drinking patterns). Data was processed using the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation, Student T-Test and One-Way ANOVA statistical tests. The results showed that women presented higher levels of selfreflection, whereas men presented higher levels of insight. With regard to alcohol consumption, men were found to drink with a greater frequency and intensity in comparison to women. Selfreflection and insight presented negative significant correlation with alcohol consumption, indicating that, also in this context, they can act as behaviour regulators. Differences in the intensity of correlation among the investigated variables in participants grouped by gender and age and the possible influence of environmental factors that would weaken or modify this relationship were discussed.