College women report high rates of sexual assault (Fisher et al., 2000; Koss et al., 1987). There is ample evidence that alcohol plays a key role in these crimes, with an estimated 50% of sexual assaults among college women involving alcohol use (e.g., Abbey et al., 2004). While the association between alcohol and sexual assault is well-documented, the mechanisms responsible for this relationship remain unknown. It is thought that alcohol may increase women's risk for victimization by disrupting their capacity to detect risk as well as their ability to resist unwanted sexual advances. However, few studies have identified specific cognitive processes affected by alcohol that explain why women have difficulty processing and responding to cues signaling risk in social situations. Moreover, little work has examined simultaneous processing of aspects of social situations that might interfere with women's processing of risk-relevant information, such as the potential impact of the woman's behavior on her popularity. This is an alcohol administration study where participants will be assigned randomly to an alcohol, placebo, or no-alcohol condition. Participants first will complete online self-report measures measuring their sexual attitudes, past sexual victimization experiences, alcohol problems, and alcohol expectancies in the week preceding the beverage administration. They then will receive either an alcohol dose or an equivalent amount of a non-alcoholic beverage (if assigned to the placebo or no-alcohol condition). Subsequent to the beverage administration, participants will complete tasks assessing their risk judgments and responses to social situations. We will examine whether alcohol intoxication (1) disrupts women's perceptual sensitivity to risk and popularity information, as well as increases the decisional threshold for high-risk information, when judging victimization risk in social situation, and (2) interferes with women's generation and selection of risk-reducing responses to these same situations, particularly when the potential impact of the woman's behavior on her popularity is high. We also will examine the effects of a placebo condition, relative to an alcohol condition, on women's judgments of and responses to victimization risk, as well as whether individual difference factors (i.e., sexual attitudes, sexual victimization history, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol problems) exacerbate the influence of alcohol on women's processing of and responses to social situations. This project is highly significant from a public health perspective, as these findings will lay the groundwork for interventions for women who use alcohol, and as a consequence, are at increased risk for victimization.
Few studies have identified specific cognitive processes affected by alcohol that explain why women have difficulty processing and responding to cues signaling risk in social situations. Moreover, little work has examined simultaneous processing of aspects of social situations that might interfere with women's processing of risk-relevant information, such as the potential impact of the woman's behavior on her popularity. Thus, this study will examine whether acute intoxication (1) disrupts women's perceptual sensitivity to risk and popularity information, as well as increases the decisional threshold for high-risk information, when judging victimization risk in social situations, and (2) interferes with women's generation and selection of risk-reducing responses to these same situations, particularly when the potential impact of the woman's behavior on her popularity is high. This study also will examine the effects of a placebo condition, as compared to an alcohol condition, on women's judgments of and responses to victimization risk, as well as whether individual difference factors (i.e., sexual attitudes, sexual victimization history, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol problems) exacerbate the influence of alcohol on women's processing of and responses to social situations. This work is highly significant from a public health perspective, as findings will lay he groundwork for interventions for women who use alcohol, and as a consequence, are at increased risk for victimization.
