Citation

Purvis DM, Gallagher KE, Parrott DJ. Addict. Behav. 2016; 58: 31-34.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, Georgia, 30302-5010, United States. Electronic address: parrott@gsu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.02.010

PMID

26905761

Abstract

Alcohol Myopia Theory (AMT; Steele & Josephs, 1990) purports that alcohol facilitates aggression by narrowing attentional focus onto salient and instigatory cues common to conflict situations. However, few tests of its counterintuitive prediction - that alcohol may decrease aggression when inhibitory cues are most salient - have been conducted. The present study examined whether an AMT-inspired self-awareness intervention manipulation would reduce heavy drinking men's intoxicated aggression toward women and also examined whether a relevant individual variable, locus of control, would moderate this effect. Participants were 102 intoxicated male heavy drinkers who completed a self-report measure of locus of control and completed the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (Taylor, 1967). In this task, participants administered electric shocks to, and received electric shocks from, a fictitious female opponent while exposed to an environment saturated with or devoid of self-awareness cues.

RESULTS indicated that the self-awareness manipulation was associated with less alcohol-related aggression toward the female confederate for men who reported an internal, but not an external, locus of control.

FINDINGS support AMT as a theoretical framework to inform preventative interventions for alcohol-related aggression and highlight the importance of individual differences in receptivity to such interventions.

Language: en