Exploring motivational interviewing’s technical hypothesis with emerging adults from racial or ethnic minority groups with heavy alcohol use

Emerging adults from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds are rarely represented in alcohol intervention research, limiting our understanding of how these interventions function across different subgroups. This study examines whether in-session distal (i.e., decision-making that is directly about behavioral change) and proximal change talk (i.e., decisions about indirect coping activities or lifestyle changes that may facilitate behavioral change) mediate motivation to change alcohol use and strategies to limit drinking after a Brief Motivational Interview session. We also explore if racial or ethnic minority status moderates the relationship between treatment and client language mediators. Analyses used the PROCESS macro for mediation and moderated-mediation analysis. Bootstrap results testing the significance of the indirect effect indicated that Proportion Change Talk Distal mediated motivation to change alcohol use at the three-month follow-up. Other mediated effects were non-significant, and racial or ethnic group (White vs. Non-White participants) did not moderate the mediation models. Additional studies are needed to confirm and refine these preliminary results.