Mood changes after cognitive testing in late middle-age: impacts of sex and habitual alcohol consumption

Men and women (50-67 years) completed drinking diaries and, on the basis of this, were divided into low (<2 units/day, 1 UK unit=8 g alcohol) and moderate (2-5 units/day) alcohol groups. They completed analogue rating scales of mood and bodily symptoms before and after two extended computerised cognitive tests. After the tests, the women showed significantly greater increases in self-ratings on the factors of anxiety and discontentment and felt significantly less alert than did the men. They also showed significantly greater increases in bodily symptoms of somatic anxiety and ratings of aggressive mood than did the men. There were no significant effects of alcohol or Sex x Alcohol interactions on the self-ratings, but the men showed significant positive correlations of alcohol and negative mood. On both the cognitive tests, there were significant Sex x Alcohol interactions because the moderate-drinking men performed worse than the low-drinking men, whereas the moderate-drinking women performed better than the low-drinking women. Thus, the middle-aged women responded much more than did the men with negative mood changes to the psychological stress of cognitive testing, although their cognitive performance was not worse.