Affective and behavioral reactions to the violation of limits on alcohol consumption.

The limit violation effect (LVE) was studied by inducing male social drinkers to consume either more or less beer than their prestated limit on alcohol intake. Affective and behavioral reactions to the violation of drinking limits were mediated by attributional style and aspects of drinking restraint. Subjects who reported greater than average levels of self-blaming attributions, restrictions on alcohol intake and cognitive preoccupation with alcohol became depressed and angry after the violation of drinking limits. In contrast to the hypothesized excessive-drinking component of the LVE, subjects who experienced negative affective reactions to the violation ordered fewer shots in a subsequent whiskey-tasting task. Possible conceptual and methodological reasons for observing only the affective component of the LVE are discussed.

On the enhancement of creativity by alcohol: pharmacology or expectation?

Creative individuals may use psychoactive drugs to enhance their ability to produce creative works, but it is difficult to differentiate the pharmacological effects from other influences. Part of the problem is that creativity defies any simple definition, making it hard to determine when or how much creativity is evident. The other major obstacle is that life circumstances are confounded with the propensity to use drugs (including alcohol), so the causal relation of drugs to creativity is uncertain. We examined this question by an experiment in which subjects were asked to creatively combine pictures of wildflowers that were implicitly organized around a set of three dimensions: color, shape, and number. Pharmacological and expected effects of alcohol were dissociated in the experiment by using the balanced placebo design (BPD). The results showed no pharmacological effect of alcohol on the creative combinations that subjects produced. However, the novelty and structural recombination of the wildflower arrangements were enhanced when subjects thought they had consumed alcohol, whether or not they had actually done so. Implications for measuring creativity and the possible motivation to use drugs for creative effect are discussed.

Psychopharmacological effects of alcohol on time perception: the extended balanced placebo design.

Time perception is affected by the pharmacological action of many drugs, but the contribution of expected effects of drugs has not been considered. A new design, the extended balanced placebo design (EBPD), is presented to study both the pharmacological and expected effects of alcohol on time perception. The EBPD makes it possible to examine the effects of alcohol across a broad range of expected and pharmacological doses. By contrast, the domain of inquiry was limited to low doses of alcohol in the original balanced placebo design. The design was later modified to study higher doses, but the control and the pure drug and expectancy conditions were sacrificed in the transformation. In the EBPD, however, any realistic combination of the expected and actual dose of alcohol can be studied, while retaining pure drug and expectancy conditions. The EBPD was tested in the present study with respect to its psychopharmacological effectiveness and the effects of alcohol on time perception. The design was effective in terms of three manipulation checks: blood alcohol concentration, subjective intoxication and postexperimental beliefs about the alcohol content of the beverage consumed. In addition, the expected and actual doses of alcohol interacted over time to evidence active compensation for the pharmacological effects of alcohol on time perception. Finally, a covariance structure model was confirmed in which the expected and actual doses of alcohol increased the perceived rate of time passage, which in turn lengthened objective estimation of a one-second interval.

Relative/Proportional Scoring of the Ways of Coping Checklist: Is it Advantageous or Artificial.

One way of scoring the Ways of Coping Checklist is to compute relative1 proportional scores in which the mean score for each scale is divided by the sum of the means for all of the scales. The proportional scoring method reportedly sets the score on each scale relative to the score for the whole scale. Using the proportional scores, direct comparisons can be made for the profiles of subjects who differ in term of the sheer magnitude of their responses. In the present article, it is argued that the relative scoring method introduces an artifact that confounds multivariate statistical analyses and ignores an individual's general reactivity to problems. Quantitative examples are given to illustrate some of the ways in which relative scoring distorts the pattern of intercorrelations among the WCC scales and thereby produces misleading multivariate results. Multivariate analysis of the raw scores is then shown to accomplish the mission set forth for the relative1 proportional scores. The latter analysis suggests that an intricate structural relationship exits between components of coping and depression. It is concluded that the relationship between coping and depression may be a matter of how effective the coping effort is when the individual is reactive to problems.

The Temptation and Restraint Inventory for measuring drinking restraint.

In the present study, the measurement of drinking restraint was broadened by developing new items that better characterized its cognitive nature as well as by testing a factor structure which represents restraint as including both the regulation and the failure to regulate alcohol intake. A previously observed (Collins, George & Lapp, 1989) three-component structure of the Restrained Drinking Scale (RDS; Ruderman & McKirnan, 1984) was confirmed. In addition, two factors were extracted from the new set of cognitive items, which when combined with the RDS clusters formed a new measure of drinking restraint, the Temptation and Restraint Inventory (TRI). The factor structure of the TRI matched the conceptualization of drinking restraint as involving successful and unsuccessful regulation of alcohol intake, and differentially predicted self-reported weekly consumption and alcohol-related problems.

Endorsement and strength of alcohol expectancies.

It has been suggested that the strength of alcohol-related expectancies can be ascertained from the number of items endorsed on subscales consisting of multiple items. In the present study, subjects were asked to rate the strength of their beliefs in addition to indicating whether or not they endorsed the items on a measure of alcohol-related expectancies. Three issues were addressed: (1) Do strength ratings and endorsements predict the perceived likelihood of drinking when their correlated effects are taken into consideration and do these responses interact? (2) Do the endorsements and strength ratings form higher order factors? and (3) Do men and women with various drinking habits rate the strength of their beliefs for a moderate and a large dose of alcohol in a way that mirrors their endorsements? The results suggest that the strength of an alcohol-related expectancy must be measured in its own right and cannot be inferred from the pattern of endorsements. Interactions of endorsements and strength ratings produce unique information that is not deducible from either measure alone.