Resisting temptation: Decreasing alcohol-related affect and drinking behavior by training response inhibition

Abstract

According to dual-process models, excessive alcohol use emerges when response inhibition ability is insufficient to inhibit automatic impulses to drink alcohol. This study examined whether strengthening response inhibition for alcohol-related cues decreases alcohol intake. Fifty-two heavy drinking students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: In the beer/no-go condition, participants performed a go/no-go task that consistently paired alcohol-related stimuli with a stopping response, to increase response inhibition for alcohol-related stimuli. In the beer/go condition, in contrast, participants were always required to respond to alcohol-related stimuli during the go/no-go task. Before and after the go/no-go manipulation, we measured weekly alcohol intake and implicit attitudes toward alcohol. In addition, we measured alcohol consumption during a taste test immediately after the go/no-go manipulation. Following the manipulation, participants in the beer/no-go condition demonstrated significantly increased negative implicit attitudes toward alcohol, and a significant reduction in weekly alcohol intake, while participants in the beer/go condition showed a non-significant increase in implicit positive attitudes toward alcohol and a significant increase in weekly alcohol intake. This study demonstrates that repeatedly stopping prepotent responses toward alcohol-related stimuli can be an effective strategy to reduce excessive alcohol use.

Self-Control and Implicit Drinking Identity as Predictors of Alcohol Consumption, Problems, and Cravings

“…Alternatively, interventions that directly target self-control, at either the trait or alcohol-specifi c level, may be fruitful in directly affecting drinking or affecting the infl uence of implicit processes on drinking. Supporting this notion, a recent study revealed that a working memory training task increased control over automatic alcohol-related impulses in problem drinkers and resulted in reduced alcohol intake up to 1 month after training (Houben et al, 2011a). Research also supports targeting alcohol-specifi c self-control as a potential intervention; for example, fi ndings from another study found that strengthening response inhibition for alcohol cues reduced weekly alcohol intake in heavy drinking students (Houben et al, 2011b).…”

Tendencias en el estudio de la cognición implícita relacionada con el alcohol

“…Concerning these interventions, the reviewed articles demonstrated that the evaluative conditioning, the Alcohol Approach Avoidance Task, the Alcohol Attention Control Training Program and the Motivational Interview of Miller and Rollnick (2002) are suitable procedures to modify IAC. Also, even though the Expectancy Challenge and the Go/No-go procedure constitute promising procedures for IAC modification, further studies should be conducted, since, as yet, results have been either contradictory (Houben et al, 2012;Houben et al, 2011) or dependent on methodological issues, such as on the algorithm used for IAT scoring (Wiers et al, 2005). Finally, one article (Ostafin & Palfai, 2012) underlined the importance of considering the possible effects of IAC on brief interventions aimed to reduce alcohol consumption.…”

“…On one hand, some of them indicated changes on implicit alcohol associations and diminished consumption (Houben, Havermans, Nederkoorn & Jansen, 2012;Houben et al, 2011). On the other hand, other article found reduction of consumption without changes in implicit alcohol associations (Bowley, Faricy, Hegarty, Johnstone, Smith, Kelly & Rushby, 2013).…”

“…These articles coincided in the assessed IAC dimensions (positive and negative implicit alcohol associations) as well as the indirect method employed (bipolar IAT). However, they differed in the samples: university students with heavy drinking (Houben et al, 2012;Houben et al, 2011) and with different consumption levels (Bowley et al, 2013). …”

“…It has been found that IAC predicts alcohol related behavior (Lindgren, Foster, Westgate & Neighbors, 2013) and several procedures to modify IAC have been developed. Among them, the Go/No-go procedure (Houben, Nederkoorn, Wiers & Jansen, 2011), the evaluative conditioning (Houben, Havermans & Wiers, 2010), the Alcohol Approach Avoidance Task -AAT (Wiers, Rinck, Kordts, Houben & Strack, 2010), the Alcohol Attention-Control Training Program (Fadardi & Cox, 2009), the Motivational Interview (Miller & Rollnick, 2002) and the Expectancy Challenge (Wiers, Van De Luitgaarden, Van Den Wildenberg & Smulders, 2005).…”