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Disruption of Frontal Lobe Neural Synchrony During Cognitive Control by Alcohol Intoxication
Published on: February 6, 2019
Automatic effects of alcohol and aggressive cues on aggressive thoughts and behaviors
Baptiste Subra1, Dominique Muller, Laurent Bègue
1Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire de Psychologie, University of Grenoble, Grenoble, France. baptiste.subra@gmail.com
Abstract:
Numerous studies have shown that alcohol increases aggression. In this article it is proposed that the link between alcohol and aggression is so strong that mere exposure to alcohol-related cues will automatically activate aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Two experiments tested this automaticity theory of alcohol-related aggression. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to alcohol- or weapon-related primes made faster lexical decisions about aggression-related words than did participants exposed to neutral primes. In Experiment 2, participants exposed to alcohol- or aggression-related subliminal primes were more aggressive toward the experimenter than were participants exposed to neutral subliminal primes. In both experiments, the effects of alcohol-related cues were as strong as the effect of aggression-related cues on aggressive thoughts and behaviors. People do not need to drink a drop of alcohol to become aggressive; exposure to alcohol cues is enough to automatically increase aggression.
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