Interactive effects of alcohol outcome expectancies and alcohol cues on nonconsumptive behavior

Abstract

Experimental research and popular belief suggest that, among its many effects, alcohol consumption reduces tension and facilitates aggression. Such observations could result from direct, pharmacological effects of alcohol on neural control of behavior but also may be accounted for by positing that drinking behavior activates mental representations of relaxation-related or aggression-related alcohol expectancies in long-term memory. Building on this latter view, in 2 experiments, the authors investigated whether rudimentary drinking-related cues, which presumably activate encoded alcohol expectancies, facilitate tension reduction and hostility in the complete absence of actual or placebo alcohol consumption. In Experiment 1, following contextual exposure to alcohol-related words, individuals with stronger expectancies that drinking reduces tension showed an increased willingness to meet with an opposite-gender stranger under relatively anxiety-provoking circumstances, suggesting that they experienced less apprehension regarding the meeting. Analogously, in Experiment 2, following near-subliminal exposure to alcohol-related words, individuals with stronger expectancies that drinking fosters aggression showed greater hostility toward a target person following an experimentally engineered provocation. Neither of the latter effects was obtained following exposure to nonalcoholic beverage words, which presumably did not activate alcohol outcome expectancy representations in long-term memory. Moreover, the strength of relevant, content-specific expectancies (i.e., for tension reduction or aggression, respectively) moderated alcohol cue exposure effects, but the strength of other expectancies (e.g., for sociability or sexual arousal) did not. Together, these findings demonstrate that exposure to rudimentary alcohol cues independently engenders expectancy-consistent behavior, thereby attesting to the remarkable breadth and subtlety of the behavioral impact of alcohol expectancy activation.