The influence of alcohol intake and alcohol expectations on the recognition of emotions.

AIMS

To investigate the effects of actual and expected alcohol intake on the detection and interpretation of the basic emotions happiness and anger in facial expressions.

METHODS

n = 102 healthy participants performed a dynamic emotion recognition task before and after receiving a drink which contained either a moderate alcohol dose or no alcohol in a double-blind design.

RESULTS

The actual alcohol intake had no effect on detecting and interpreting facial expressions. However, subjects who expected to drink alcohol judged facial expressions significantly more often as happy. No effects were observable for the recognition of anger in facial expressions.

CONCLUSION

Our results corroborate recent studies that found that the belief of consuming alcohol does not increase anger recognition or aggressive behavior but decreases aggression and social stress.