The overarching objective of this research is to illuminate the role that alcohol consumption plays in victimization of women. The studies proposed in this competing renewal application are designed to continue and expand investigation of the basic proposition that observers perceive and behave towards the drinking women differently then her nondrinking counterpart. Further, these differences may lead to evaluations and attributions about sexuality that could support or even precipitate sexual advances and/or aggressiveness. In our previous work, videotape and written depictions were used to portray the drinking woman. These studies yielded relatively consistent evidence that a women's alcohol consumption attracts perceptions and inferences from others that may pose risks to her social esteem and increase here sexual vulnerability. These data provided partial and qualified answers to the original specific aims and formed the basis for a new set of specific aims and studies. First, to determine if earlier findings are generalizable across stimulus and response domains, the present work will use live analogue interactions with the partner and behavioral indices of the partner's interest in erotica. Second, to determine whether alcohol's perceived effects on sexuality are being uniquely or inequitably applied to women, gender-specificity of the earlier findings will examine systematically. Third, to examine further the importance of alcohol expectancies as crucial mediating and/or moderating variables, the expectancy set about the subject/perceiver's consumption and the partner/target's consumption will be manipulated. Furthermore, subjects' pre-experimental expectancies will be assessed and evaluated. Fourth, the importance of dosage will be examined by varying the apparent consumption level of the partner/target. Finally, since--ultimately--the hypothesized processes must be understood in the context of actual alcohol consumption, a balanced-placebo design study will be conducted to examine the independent and interactive effects of expectancy set and alcohol content. Overall, the proposed study seeks to clarify further the expectational processes that operate in cross-gender drinking interactions and thereby to enhance understanding of alcohol-related heterosexual aggression. It is hoped that such inquiry will eventually lead to formulation of educationally and clinically useful materials for prevention of and response to alcohol-related instances of aggression against women.
