Testing the universality of desire-to-behavior pathways across substance and non-substance domains

Desires for food, sleep, alcohol, and cannabis share a common structure, but whether the processes linking them to behavior are universal or domain-specific remains unclear. Using ecological momentary assessment, we studied 385 young adults (aged 18–22) who regularly used both alcohol and cannabis across eight weekends, yielding 24,986 observations. Bayesian cross-classified mixed-effects models revealed that domain-specificity operated on how desires were experienced but not on how they were regulated. Context (e.g., intoxication) and individual differences (e.g., urgency traits, motivation to reduce use) shaped substance desire experiences in distinct ways, yet the core regulatory pathways, desire strength predicting enactment, conflict predicting resistance, and resistance reducing enactment, operated similarly across substance and non-substance desires. Findings are limited to an at-risk but non-clinical sample, and because only the strongest desire at each assessment was fully characterized, regulatory dynamics for weaker co-occurring desires remain unknown.