School of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZA, UK.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2013 Aug;228(4):603-10. doi: 10.1007/s00213-013-3066-0. Epub 2013 Mar 17.
Alcohol dependence is characterised by motivational conflict (or ambivalence) in controlled cognitive processes, but it is unclear if ambivalence also exists within automatic cognitive processes, and if ambivalence operates between controlled and automatic processes.
To investigate ambivalence operating within and between controlled and automatic processes in alcohol dependence.
Alcohol-dependent patients who had recently completed inpatient alcohol detoxification (N = 47) and social drinking controls (N = 40) completed unipolar implicit association tests and self-report measures of alcohol approach and avoidance motivation and alcohol outcome expectancies.
As predicted, both positive and negative alcohol outcome expectancies were stronger in alcohol-dependent patients compared to controls, indicative of ambivalence. Groups did not differ on implicit alcohol-positive associations, but alcohol-dependent participants had significantly weaker alcohol-negative associations than controls. Regression analyses revealed that implicit negative associations accounted for unique variance in group membership after controlling for alcohol outcome expectancies.
Our findings demonstrate that alcohol dependent patients possess weak automatic alcohol-negative associations but not strong automatic alcohol-positive associations, and they suggest the presence of conflict between controlled and automatic processes with regard to negative alcohol cognitions.
酒精依赖的特征是在受控制的认知过程中存在动机冲突（或矛盾），但目前尚不清楚矛盾是否也存在于自动认知过程中，以及矛盾是否在受控制和自动过程之间运作。
调查酒精依赖者在受控制和自动过程中存在的矛盾。
最近完成住院酒精解毒治疗的酒精依赖患者（N=47）和社交饮酒对照者（N=40）完成了单极内隐联想测验和自我报告的酒精趋近和回避动机以及酒精结果预期的测量。
正如预测的那样，与对照组相比，酒精依赖患者的积极和消极酒精结果预期都更强，表明存在矛盾。两组在酒精阳性联想的内隐测试中没有差异，但酒精依赖组的酒精阴性联想明显弱于对照组。回归分析表明，在控制了酒精结果预期之后，内隐的负性联想可以解释群体成员的独特差异。
我们的发现表明，酒精依赖患者具有较弱的自动酒精负性联想，但没有较强的自动酒精正性联想，这表明在负性酒精认知方面存在控制和自动过程之间的冲突。
