Dissonance and alcohol: Drinking your troubles away.

Abstract

Based on recent evidence supporting the assumption that cognitive dissonance is experienced as an unpleasant emotional state, and further evidence pertaining to the effects of drinking alcohol, it was predicted that among social drinkers, dissonance arousal would increase the amount of drinking and that drinking, in turn, would reduce dissonance and subsequent attitude change. This hypothesis was tested in the first two experiments by having subjects taste rate different brands of an alcoholic beverage--ostensibly to test taste discrimination but in fact to measure the amount of drinking--immediately after dissonance was aroused by having them write a counterattitudinal essay. The effect of drinking on dissonance reduction was assessed by measuring subjects' postattitudes immediately after the drinking task. Both experiments found that although dissonance arousal had little effect on the amount of drinking, whatever drinking occurred was sufficient to eliminate dissonance-reducing attitude change. The second experiment further established that these results occurred for light as well as heavy social drinkers. Evidence that the dissonance-reducing effect of drinking resulted form some effect of drinking alcohol was provided by the finding, in the second and third experiments, that neither water or coffee drinking was sufficient to eliminate attitude change in this paradigm. Both the practical and theoretical implications are discussed. The practical implication is that some forms of alcohol abuse may evolve through the reinforcement of drinking as a means of reducing dissonance; the theoretical implication is that dissonance may be frequently reduced through behaviors that ameliorate the feelings of dissonance without involving cognitive change.

Alcohol dose effects on stress response to cued threat vary by threat intensity

“…see Donohue et al 2007, Stritzke et al 1995). In addition, other common stressors (e.g., social interactions, cognitive dissonance, self-disclosing speeches; Wilson and Abrams 1977; Steele et al 1981; Sayette et al 1992) are difficult to quantify with respect to intensity and likely subject to large individual differences. As such these experiments may have artificially reduced or otherwise underestimated the magnitude of alcohol SRD effects observed to more robust and/or well-controlled stressors.…”

Longitudinal Associations among Discordant Sexual Orientation Dimensions and Hazardous Drinking in a Cohort of Sexual Minority Women

“…Steele, Southwick, and Critchlow (1981) showed that alcohol may be misused by some individuals to lessen psychological discomfort that results from feelings of dissonance. The authors emphasize that use of alcohol may reduce psychological discomfort by, ostensibly, providing a means of distraction without necessarily compelling dissonance-reducing cognitions or attitude change.…”

Cognitive dissonance induced by writing a counterattitudinal essay facilitates performance on simple tasks but not on complex tasks that involve working memory

“…The energizing properties of dissonance arousal have also been shown on reduction of dissonance (for reviews, see Fazio & Cooper, 1983). For example, if arousal is increased by caffeine (Steele, Southwick, & Critchlow, 1981), or a sports session (Fazio & Martin, 1981, cited by Fazio & Cooper, 1983), attitude change increases. By contrast, if dissonance arousal is lessened by alcohol (Steele et al, 1981) or by a tranquilizing drug (Cooper et al, 1978), attitude change is lessened, too.…”