Steele C M, Critchlow B, Liu T J
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1985 Jan;48(1):35-46. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.48.1.35.
Can alcohol make people more helpful, and if so, how? We hypothesized that alcohol would increase helping when, if the person were sober, the helping response would be under high inhibitory conflict--that is, when it would be affected by strong instigating and inhibiting pressures. Alcohol's damage to inhibitory processing should then allow instigating pressures to have more influence on the response, increasing helping. We expected that under low inhibitory conflict, when either or both of these response pressures would be weak under sobriety, alcohol would have little effect on helping. In two experiments we examined this reasoning. In Study 1, a mild dose of alcohol increased helping among high-conflict subjects pressured to help with a task they did not like, but did not increase helping among low-conflict subjects who either liked the task or were weakly pressured to help. In Study 2, a somewhat stronger dose of alcohol increased helping among all high-conflict subjects pressured to help with an undesirable task, yet again had no effect among low-conflict subjects weakly pressured to help. These studies provided an experimental demonstration of the role of inhibitory response conflict in mediating alcohol's social effects, and show that this process generalizes to prosocial behavior. Additional evidence from both experiments helped to rule out alternative explanations concerning drinking expectancies, alcohol's ability to enhance mood, and its ability to make the task more bearable.
酒精会让人变得更乐于助人吗？如果是，又是如何做到的呢？我们假设，当一个人清醒时，如果帮助行为会受到高度抑制性冲突的影响——也就是说，当它会受到强烈的促动和抑制压力的影响时，酒精会增加帮助行为。那么酒精对抑制性加工的损害应该会使促动压力对反应产生更大的影响，从而增加帮助行为。我们预计，在低抑制性冲突的情况下，当清醒时这些反应压力中的一个或两个都较弱时，酒精对帮助行为几乎没有影响。在两项实验中，我们检验了这一推理。在研究1中，轻度剂量的酒精增加了那些面临高冲突的受试者的帮助行为，这些受试者被迫去帮助完成一项他们不喜欢的任务，但对于那些喜欢该任务或受到微弱压力去帮助的低冲突受试者，酒精并没有增加他们的帮助行为。在研究2中，更强剂量的酒精增加了所有面临高冲突的受试者的帮助行为，这些受试者被迫去帮助完成一项不受欢迎的任务，但对于那些受到微弱压力去帮助的低冲突受试者，酒精同样没有产生影响。这些研究为抑制性反应冲突在调节酒精的社会效应中所起的作用提供了实验证明，并表明这一过程适用于亲社会行为。两项实验的其他证据有助于排除关于饮酒预期、酒精改善情绪的能力以及使其任务更易于忍受的能力的其他解释。
