Centre for Emotional Health, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Drug Alcohol Rev. 2013 Mar;32(2):162-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1465-3362.2012.00500.x. Epub 2012 Sep 20.
Although alcohol is often used in an attempt to alleviate negative affect, alcohol oftentimes exacerbates depressive symptoms. Therefore the relationship between alcohol and affect, and the role of motives for drinking remain unclear. The present study hypothesised that placebo alcohol would blunt affective responding and that desire to drink would increase in individuals who expected alcohol to help them cope after a negative experience. The present study also explored whether motives and reasons for drinking altered after a negative experience.
Participants (36 first-year psychology students and 41 community members) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups, being soft drink or placebo alcohol, neutral or negative mood induction.
Two repeated measures analyses indicated that placebo alcohol did not significantly blunt affective responding after the negative mood induction. T-tests showed that desire to drink did not significantly increase post negative mood induction for participants who endorsed coping motives for drinking. However, interestingly coping-depression and enhancement motives decreased after negative mood induction, and participants misattributed the majority of their mood to other life events.
The findings indicate that motives for drinking are amendable with prior learning, providing support for expectancy challenge procedures. The study also provides some evidence for alcohol's effect on emotional lability.
尽管人们常常用饮酒来缓解负性情绪，但酒精往往会使抑郁症状恶化。因此，酒精与情绪之间的关系以及饮酒动机的作用仍不清楚。本研究假设安慰剂酒精会削弱情绪反应，并且在经历负性事件后，预期酒精能帮助他们应对的个体，其饮酒欲望会增加。本研究还探讨了经历负性事件后，饮酒的动机和原因是否会发生改变。
参与者（36 名一年级心理学学生和 41 名社区成员）被随机分配到四个实验组中的一个，即软饮料或安慰剂酒精、中性或负性情绪诱导。
两项重复测量分析表明，在负性情绪诱导后，安慰剂酒精并没有显著削弱情绪反应。t 检验显示，对于那些将饮酒作为应对策略的参与者来说，在经历负性情绪诱导后，其饮酒欲望并没有显著增加。然而，有趣的是，在经历负性情绪诱导后，应对和增强动机减少了，而且参与者错误地将他们的大部分情绪归因于其他生活事件。
这些发现表明，饮酒动机是可以通过先验学习来改变的，这为预期挑战程序提供了支持。该研究还为酒精对情绪不稳定性的影响提供了一些证据。
