Alcohol and social influence: female yielding to male and female group pressure.

Thirty college women were randomly assigned to either an alcohol, a placebo, or a control group. The alcohol group drank 0.8 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight. Subjects estimated the length of lines and were exposed to a simulated group pressure. Yielding to the group pressure constituted the dependent variable. Both the alcohol and the placebo groups showed increased number of yieldings compared to the control group. Different theoretical explanations are discussed suggesting psychological mechanisms to be the most important.