The impact of empathy on drinking motives, craving, and drink orders: An experimental study

Research suggests that lower empathy may predict alcohol problems. However, prior work has focused on trait-level differences using observational, often cross-sectional, designs, limiting causal inferences and leaving open questions about how state empathy might influence immediate drinking-related processes. We experimentally manipulated state empathy (low vs. high) and drinking contexts (social vs. solitary) to assess their impact on alcohol craving and drink orders and tested theoretically informed mediating mechanisms (i.e., social and conformity drinking motives).

Heavy drinking young adults (N = 155; mean age = 22.44 ± 1.35 years; 63.23% female) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: empathy (low vs. high) and drinking context (expect to drink alone vs. expect to drink with another participant). After completing the empathy manipulation task, during which participants were informed whether they would be drinking alone or with another ostensible participant in the lab, they rated their conformity and social motives for drinking and then reported their alcoholic drink orders and alcohol craving (counterbalanced order).

Despite the empathy manipulation resulting in robust differences in self-reported state empathy, results revealed no significant main effects of empathy condition or drinking context nor their interaction on drinking motives or alcohol outcomes. Social drinking motives predicted increased drink orders (b = 0.02, SE = 0.01, p < 0.05) and alcohol craving (b = 0.21, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001).

This study is the first to experimentally test the influence of state empathy and drinking contexts on alcohol outcomes, with drinking motives as mediators. Findings are discussed in the context of the limitations of this study and directions for future research.