SOCIAL CONTINGENCIES AND THE EFFECTS OF PUNISHMENT IN ALCOHOLICS AND NONALCOHOLICS

Okulitch and Marlatt (1972) have argued that alcoholics show a differe ntial tolerance for punishment relative to nonalcoholics. However, the studies purporting to support this assertion failed to control for th e effects of social factors on alcoholics' tolerance of punishment. Th e present study compared alcoholics' and nonalcoholics' tolerance for punishment under two conditions. In the private condition, subjects we re led to believe that no one would know how they responded to a task involving punishment. In the public condition, it was made clear that the subjects' responses would be known to the experimenter. In the pub lic condition, alcoholic subjects made more punished responses than no nalcoholic subjects. In the private condition, neither group responded in the presence of punishment.