Does expectancy affect alcohol absorption?

Many factors influence alcohol absorption, yet few studies have addressed the issue of whether or not experimental manipulations themselves may affect alcohol absorption. The current balanced placebo design study comparing the expectancy effects of root beer and non-alcoholic beer vehicles resulted in significantly lower blood alcohol levels in the root beer condition than in the beer condition even though alcohol doses were the same. Two possible explanations are discussed; differences in expectancy may have affected absorption, or fructose in the root beer may have slowed absorption of alcohol relative to the maltose in beer. The literature does not provide strong evidence for either of the hypotheses. The implication of this study's results is that alcohol absorption rate may be an important source of confounding effects in behavioral research in the laboratory, because it may be affected by beverages or other experimental conditions.