Louvain Experimental Psychopathology Research Group (LEP), Psychological Science Research Institute, UCLouvain, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Alcohol Alcohol. 2024 Jan 17;59(2). doi: 10.1093/alcalc/agae010.
Despite their importance in the emergence and persistence of severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD), social cognition impairments remain understudied in this population. Hostile attributional biases (HAB), a key component of social cognition, may be involved in interpersonal problems and SAUD maintenance. However, current evidence for HAB in SAUD is highly preliminary, as it relies on a single study based on a small sample and on a task that cannot dissociate increased hostile from reduced benign attributions. We therefore used an improved methodology to further characterize this bias and disentangle underlying mechanisms. In addition, we explored potential gender differences.
A total of 56 patients (28 women) diagnosed with SAUD and 66 (27 women) demographically matched controls completed the Word-Sentence Association Paradigm-Hostility, which provides a valid, spontaneous, and relatively implicit assessment of both hostile and benign social attributions related to ambiguous situations. They also completed self-report measures of psychopathology and interpersonal problems.
At the group-level, patients with SAUD presented higher HAB than controls, without group differences for benign attributions. Gender analyses revealed that this effect selectively emerged in men with SAUD. Further, patients' benign attributions did not differ from their hostile attributions. Finally, HAB (not benign attributions) were associated with interpersonal problems and state anxiety in patients.
The association between SAUD and HAB at the group level is genuine and replicable across samples and tasks. This association may further selectively emerge in men. Our results also confirm the functional significance of HAB in SAUD, and point to potential mechanisms and clinical recommendations.
尽管社会认知缺陷在严重酒精使用障碍（SAUD）的出现和持续中很重要，但在该人群中，这些缺陷的研究仍不够充分。敌对归因偏差（HAB）是社会认知的一个关键组成部分，它可能与人际关系问题和 SAUD 的维持有关。然而，目前关于 SAUD 中 HAB 的证据还很初步，因为它仅基于一项基于小样本的研究，以及一项不能区分增加的敌意归因和减少的良性归因的任务。因此，我们使用了一种改进的方法来进一步描述这种偏差并分解潜在的机制。此外，我们还探讨了潜在的性别差异。
共有 56 名被诊断为 SAUD 的患者（28 名女性）和 66 名（27 名女性）在人口统计学上匹配的对照组完成了单词-句子联想范式-敌意，该范式提供了一种有效、自发和相对隐含的方法来评估与模糊情境相关的敌对和良性社会归因。他们还完成了心理病理学和人际关系问题的自我报告测量。
在群体水平上，SAUD 患者的 HAB 高于对照组，而良性归因则没有差异。性别分析表明，这种效应仅在男性 SAUD 患者中出现。此外，患者的良性归因与他们的敌意归因没有区别。最后，HAB（而非良性归因）与患者的人际关系问题和状态焦虑有关。
SAUD 和 HAB 之间的关联在群体水平上是真实的，并且在样本和任务中都具有可重复性。这种关联可能在男性中进一步选择性地出现。我们的结果还证实了 HAB 在 SAUD 中的功能意义，并指出了潜在的机制和临床建议。
