Social attunement and alcohol use: The role of age and gender

Alcohol use typically peaks during adolescence and early adulthood, when its social reinforcement value is high, and then decreases as individuals take on more adult-like responsibilities. The present study investigates whether social attunement (SA) plays a role in higher alcohol use in adolescence as well as a lower alcohol use when aging.

This online study included an international sample of 683 alcohol users (16 - 81yrs). Participants completed a SA Questionnaire, an Implicit SA task (ISAT), and measures of alcohol use. The ISAT measured SA as the change in willingness to drink in response to peer feedback between two blocks of images representing social alcohol, social non-alcohol, and social non-drinking settings. Linear regressions were conducted to assess the association between SA and alcohol use, and the role of age and gender in these associations.

Unlike expected, interactions between age and SA did not predict alcohol use across social situations regardless of feedback condition. However, exploratory post-hoc analyses using the total SA score per social condition showed significant interactions between age and SA in predicting alcohol use in social situations involving non-alcoholic or no drinks. In social non-alcohol drinking settings, SA was positively associated with alcohol use among younger participants, but this association became negative in older individuals. Contrastingly, in the social non-drinking condition, SA was negatively associated with alcohol use among younger participants, but this association became positive in older individuals.

Depending on age and social setting, SA can both be a risk- or protective factor for alcohol use.