Alcohol Consumption and Aggression
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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.
Chapter 9: Substance Use, Abuse, and Addiction
Critical Thinking Exercise: Alcohol Consumption and Aggression
Psychologists have long recognized a two-way association between alcohol consumption and violent or aggressive behavior. Not only may drinking alcohol promote increased aggressiveness, but being the victim of aggression may also lead to excessive alcohol consumption. What might account for this two-way relationship? Could it be biologically, psychologically, or socially based? Although psychologists do not yet have all the answers, new research is providing important insights into this problem. This exercise examines the topic of alcohol consumption and aggression. The first set of questions requires you to think critically and independently about the topic. Answer the following questions on your own.
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Research has shown that alcohol exerts a direct physiological effect by inhibiting the brain centers that normally inhibit violence; by lowering the threshold for lashing out, especially in males, and by affecting brain centers involved in reasoning and thinking. The direct effect of alcohol is difficult to test in humans, but students might suggest an experiment based on the alcohol myopia study conducted by Antonia Abbey and her colleagues in which college students were given drinks, some with alcohol and some without. In this experiment, the student would provide alcohol-laced drinks to one group and nonalcoholic drinks to another, control, group (of course, controlling for taste), then introduce a situation in which the participants would become frustrated—trying to solve an impossible puzzle, for example. To test the participant’s aggression, the student would administer various measures of aggression or anger to see whether those who had ingested alcohol exhibited the disinhibition effect.
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The student should suggest another experiment in which an experimental group is given alcohol and a control group is not, except in this case have participants take one of a number of standard tests of attention span and sensory-motor tasks.
Students would compare the ability of both experimental and control participants to monitor a visual or auditory stimulus or hold a string of digits in memory. Alternatively, they could confront participants with a number of environmental stimuli and test how many stimuli participants under the influence of alcohol can process versus how many those who are not under the influence can process.
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Using the same design as the two previous experiments, students would set up an experiment to compare the aggressive behavior of participants who were led to believe alcohol was in their drink with those who did not think they were drinking alcohol.
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Because this Web site contains many studies, students will find a number that are applicable. Class discussion could focus on a comparison of actual results with students’ predicted results, and compare the validity of the designs generated by students. Students could critique their own designs, or they could hand in their design descriptions and the class could critique several designs.