Differences in alcohol expectancy between aggressive and nonaggressive social drinkers

Previous reports have shown that drinkers with aggressive personalities not only hold the strongest beliefs that alcohol facilitates aggressive behavi or, but they also display the greatest increases in laboratory aggression a fter receiving alcohol. Given that several studies have demonstrated that a portion of the behavioral and subjective effects of alcohol are due to psy chological expectancy, this study explored whether aggressive drinkers have elevated intoxication expectancies from laboratory beverages with unknown alcohol content. The rates of aggressive responses emitted in a money subtr action aggression model under baseline conditions were used to select an ag gressive group and a nonaggressive group, each with five male and five fema le participants. Subjects then ingested and rated each of three placebo (1 mi alcohol) beverages administered hourly during a subsequent laboratory vi sit, and rated a series of three 0.35 g/kg of alcohol beverages the followi ng day. Whereas nonaggressive subjects clearly discriminated the relative a lcohol content of alcohol and placebo drinks, aggressive subjects gave prog ressively elevated shot equivalent ratings to placebo drinks, similar to th eir ratings of alcohol doses. However, despite similar self-reported drinki ng histories, aggressive subjects reported anticipating only half the intox ication from the alcohol doses land in fact achieved a lower peak breath al cohol concentration) than was expected by nonaggressive subjects.