Alcohol's ability to reduce two prevalent forms of stress -- the psychological stress following failure and the stress of social response conflict -- is seen to derive from its impairment of perceptual and cognitive functioning rather than from its direct physiological effects. Through these impairments, alcohol is presumed to restrict attention and information processing to the most immediate aspects of experience, i.e. to the most salient internal and external stimuli. Thus, if after a psychologically stressful event, one is engaged in activity, these impairments may reduce stress by diverting attention and thought to the immediate demands of the activity and away from stressful cognitions. This proposition was supported by research during our previous funding period showing that alcohol signficantly improved affect following a failure experience only when subjects also engaged in a mildly pleasant activity. The present proposal outlines two further experiments, one comparing our model with other relevant models of alcohol's reinforcing effect (e.g. Hull' self-awareness model) and another testing whether activity -- as a basis of alcohol's stress-reducing effect -- can stimulate drinking as response to stress. Alcohol's damage to information processing is also presumed to reduce the distress arising from conflicting response tendencies. Research during our previous funding period demonstrated that alcohol makes social behavior more extreme or excessive primarily by focusing thought and attention on immediate response impulses and away from less immediate inhibitory pressures, thus """"""""disinhibiting"""""""" the response. (Alcohol has relatively little effect on social behaviors when they are not under strong conflict from these pressures.) The question examined in the present proposal, is whether alcohol's ability to reduce this conflict is a source of alcohol's reinformcement value. Two experiments are proposed, one examining alcohol's ability to enhance affect through relieving this conflict, and the other testing whether this form of response conflict can stimulate drinking. The role of drinking habits, drinking expectancies and situationally relevant individual differences is also examined.
| Steele, C M; Josephs, R A (1990) Alcohol myopia. Its prized and dangerous effects. Am Psychol 45:921-33 |
| Josephs, R A; Steele, C M (1990) The two faces of alcohol myopia: attentional mediation of psychological stress. J Abnorm Psychol 99:115-26 |
| Steele, C M; Josephs, R A (1988) Drinking your troubles away. II: An attention-allocation model of alcohol's effect on psychological stress. J Abnorm Psychol 97:196-205 |
| Steele, C M; Southwick, L (1985) Alcohol and social behavior I: The psychology of drunken excess. J Pers Soc Psychol 48:18-34 |
| Steele, C M; Critchlow, B; Liu, T J (1985) Alcohol and social behavior II: the helpful drunkard. J Pers Soc Psychol 48:35-46 |
