Alcohol consumption and escalatory aggression in intoxicated and sober dyads

Abstract

It has been suggested that alcohol ingestion facilitates escalatory processes in aggressive interactions. The present study examined interaction patterns in intoxicated, sober and mixed dyads. Thirty pairs of men college students were randomly assigned to these conditions. Subjects who received alcohol received .964 g of absolute alcohol per kg of body weight. At the beginning of each trial in a reaction-time competition, each member of the dyad selected the shock level that he wanted his opponent to receive if the opponent was slower on the trial. Further, each member was informed by feedback lights of the shock level that his opponent had selected for him. The results indicated that the intoxicated dyads selected higher shock levels than did the sober dyads. Mixed dyads tended to select lower shock levels than intoxicated dyads but higher shock levels than sober dyads. However, these differences were not statistically significant. Additionally, intoxicated dyads escalated in aggression over the first block of six trials, whereas neither sober nor mixed dyads evidenced such an escalation. One interpretation of these findings is that the cognitive disruption caused by the alcohol interfered with the subjects' ability to evaluate the consequences of their behavior and to interpret the behavior of their opponents. A second interpretation is that, because of the expectancy effects associated with alcohol consumption, intoxicated dyads did not feel constrained to a nonaggressive stance. Finally, the value of the dyadic-interaction paradigm in the study of alcohol-related violence was discussed.