Forty-eight undergraduate male social drinkers were randomly assigned to one of two expectancy set conditions in which they were led to believe that the beverage they were administered contained alcohol or no alcohol. For half of the subjects in each expectancy condition, the beverage was an alcoholic malt liquor; the others drank a nonalcoholic malt beverage. After their drinks, changes in penile tumescence in response to normal and deviant tape recordings and to self-generated fantasy were measured physiologically by a mercuryin-rubber strain gauge. The cognitive set (expectancy) significantly increased penile tumescence in response to the various erotic recordings. Alcohol did not significantly influence levels of sexual arousal. Subjects who believed they had consumed an alcoholic beverage evidenced significantly more arousal to the forcible rape recording and to the sadistic stimuli than subjects who believed that they had consumed a nonalcoholic beverage, regardless of the actual contents of the beverage. The cognitive set, as well as the alcohol, significantly influenced several adjunctive measures of arousal, including heart rate, skin temperature, and subjective reports of sexual arousal. Self-report measures of sexual arousal were positively correlated with penile tumescence.An association between alcohol and serious criminal offense is often assumed (Fink, 1938;McGeorge, 1963). In particular, recent investigators suggest a direct relation between alcohol ingestion and aggressive sexual offenses such as forcible rape (Amir, 1971; Gebhard, Gagnon, Pomeroy, & Christenson, 196S;Rada, 1975). Gebhard et al. (1965) interviewed 1,356 white males who had been convicted of one or more sexual offenses. They reported that heterosexual contact accompanied by force or threat with females over age 16 was in sig-The authors express appreciation to Everett Smith, William Hawkins, Shirley Justice, and Betty Catoe for their conscientious assistance in conducting the study. The theoretical contributions of G. Terence Wilson are also gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank the Hecht Distributing Company, Norfolk, Virginia, for providing the experimental beverages.Requests for reprints should be sent to

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Using either a gas chromatography or an infrared absorption technique, series of blood alcohol concentrations (BACsl determined by breath tests were obtained from human subjects immediately subsequent to their having only oral contact with beverages ranging in ethyl alcohol concentration from 4% to 95% +. Times for total dissipation of mouth alcohol residuals to a level of practical nonsignificance ranged from 10 to 19 min. Dissipation rates were an inverse and approximately exponential function of the ethyl alcohol concentration of the beverage and were greatly shortened by rinsing the mouth with warm (34°CI water prior to testing. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to the methodology of a number of research studies employing BAC breath-testing equipment.