Attribution and alcohol-mediated aggression.

Abstract

Forty-eight male subjects participated in an aggression task after having received either alcoholic or placebo beverages and after being told that they had received either a high dose or low dose of alcohol. All subjects in the alcohol group actually received the same dose. Measures of aggression were the intensity and duration of shock given to a bogus partner in a reaction time-pain perception task and a score on a posttask attitude questionnaire. Blood alcohol readings were taken three times during the session, and a locus of control scale was administered before and after drinking. For subjects in the alcohol conditions, blood alcohol levels averaged .079% before the task and .085% upon completion of the task. Alcohol resulted in higher aggression scores only on the questionnaire measure, and an interaction between drug and attribution was found for the measure of shock duration. Attribution alone resulted in greater aggression on the measure of shock intensity. Subjects in groups where the attribution was discrepant with the drug condition were the most aggressive on the measures of both shock intensity and duration. These subjects became more external, reflecting a high correlation between their aggression and a stimulus tone. The results of this study suggest that a person's increased aggressiveness when intoxicated results from an interaction situation between alcohol and an alteration in responsivity to provoking stimuli.

Alcohol and aggression: An integration of findings from experimental studies

“…If the researcher also wishes to determine the properties of alcohol consumption that impact aggression-that is, determine if the effect is pharmacological, psychological, or both-then this design is inadequate; comparing participants in the alcohol group with those in the control confounds pharmacological effects with expectancy effects 2 (Bushman, 1997). To overcome this problem, some researchers adopted a balanced-placebo design in which alcohol consumption and alcohol expectancy were fully crossed (see Gustafson, 1985a;Pihl, Zeichner, Niaura, Nagy, & Zacchia, 1981). As shown in Fig.…”

Alcohol and Disinhibition

“…However, intoxicated subjects rated a partner with evil intent as more aggressive. Pihl et al [120] found increased aggression after alcohol intoxication but the effect of expectations was not evaluated. It was not possible to evaluate the disinhibition hypothesis in these studies because the existence of inhibition of aggression was not measured.…”

“…The beverage and the sample strongly influence the result in different studies [119][120][121]. Gustafson [122] found no increased aggression as expressed by Cezarek and Marke Personality System (CMPS) after beer or wine consumption.…”

Influence of Subjective Intoxication, Breath Alcohol Concentration, and Expectancies on the Alcohol‐Aggression Relation

“…Most of the research on alcohol-related aggression has typically compared an alcohol group with a placebo and/ or a knowingly sober control group. Only 2 studies found an equal increase in aggression for persons given alcohol and those given a placebo (Lang et al, 1975;Pihl et al, 1981), and 1 investigation showed that aggression actually decreased for persons given an alcoholic beverage relative to those given a placebo (Rohsenow and Bachorowski, 1984). In contrast, 5 meta-analytic investigations demonstrated that whereas alcohol groups display significantly greater levels of aggression compared with placebo and sober control groups, placebo and sober controls do not tend to differ significantly (Bushman, 1997;Bushman and Cooper, 1990;Hull and Bond, 1986;Ito et al, 1996;Steele and Southwick, 1985).…”