Self-assessment of inebriation from external indices

Objective: The objective was to study people's judgments, through the use o f external indices, of their expected degree of inebriation and to characte rize the cognitive processes involved in making these judgments. Method: Th e participants were 143 adults living in France. In accordance with N. I-I. Anderson's functional theory of cognition (1982, 1996), their primary task was to read 64 cards depicting drinking situations characterized by three parameters: number of glasses, type of drink, and temporal relation to eati ng; to associate with each situation a certain degree of personal intoxicat ion; and to indicate this degree of expected intoxication on linear scale a nchored by Not at all drunk and Extremely drunk. Results: Participants were able to judge the general direction and combination of effects. They indic ated incorrectly, however, that incremental effects decrease at higher leve ls of consumption (4 or more glasses) and at higher concentrations of alcoh ol in a drink. On the other hand, they indicated correctly that eating food decreases the impact of drinking alcohol. Drinkers and nondrinkers used di fferent rules for self-assessment from external indices. Implications: The systematic errors in both drinkers' and nondrinkers' use of external clues could, unless corrected, result in their becoming more inebriated than inte nded. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.