Men and women, alcohol and aggression.

The purpose of this study was to examine the acute effects of alcohol on aggressive behavior in men and women in a laboratory setting. Participants were 526 (261 men and 265 women) healthy social drinkers between 21 and 35 years of age. They were randomly assigned to either an alcohol or a placebo group. Aggression was measured using a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm in which electric shocks are received from, and delivered to, a same gender fictitious opponent during a supposed competitive interpersonal task. Aggression was operationalized as the intensity and duration of shocks that participants administered to their "opponent." Overall, men were more aggressive than women. Alcohol increased aggression for both men and women but this effect was stronger for men. This is one of the first laboratory studies to demonstrate that alcohol increases aggression in women.

Experimentally induced anxiety attenuates alcohol-related aggression in men.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that state anxiety operates as moderator of the alcohol-aggression relation. Participants were 80 healthy male social drinkers between 21 and 33 years of age. They were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups: (a) alcohol + anxiety induction (n = 20), (b) placebo + anxiety induction (n = 20), (c) alcohol + no anxiety induction (n = 20), and (d) placebo + no anxiety induction (n = 20). Anxiety was induced by informing participants that they had to deliver a speech about what they liked and disliked about their body in front of a video camera. A modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (S. Taylor, 1967) was then used to measure aggressive behavior in a situation where electric shocks were administered to, and received from, a fictitious opponent under the guise of a competitive reaction time task. Results indicated that the anxiety induction was successful in suppressing aggression for participants who received alcohol equal to levels seen in placebo controls. Findings are discussed within the context of a number of theories of alcohol's anxiolytic effects in relation to intoxicated aggression.