Citation

Giancola PR, Corman MD. Psychol. Sci. 2007; 18(7): 649-655.

Affiliation

University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. peter@email.uky.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01953.x

PMID

17614875

Abstract

This article presents the first systematic test of the attention-allocation model for alcohol-related aggression. According to this model, alcohol has a "myopic" effect on attentional capacity that presumably facilitates aggression by focusing attention on more salient provocative, rather than less salient inhibitory, cues in hostile situations. Aggression was assessed using a laboratory task in which mild electric shocks were received from, and administered to, a fictitious opponent. Study 1 demonstrated that a moderate-load cognitive distractor suppressed aggression in intoxicated subjects (to levels even lower than those exhibited by a placebo control group). Study 2 assessed how varying the magnitude of a distracting cognitive load affected aggression in the alcohol and placebo conditions. Results indicated that the moderate-load distraction used in Study 1 (i.e., holding four elements in sequential order in working memory) suppressed aggression best. Cognitive loads of larger and smaller magnitudes were not successful in attenuating aggression.

Language: en