Alcohol and Aggression

Every geek is a tough warrior after drinking one beer. Even if after such a courageous act it's quite possible he won't be able to recover for a month. Now a team at University of Kentucky has investigated the link between alcohol and aggression to see why drunks get aggressive. Is this a general tendency or it rather depends on the individual and circumstances?

Psychologist Peter Giancola and his student Michelle Corman decided to explore these questions in the laboratory. One general opinion is that alcohol enhances aggression because it inhibits the brain part that controls the attention and working memory. If we can only focus on a part of what goes on around us, drinking narrows social vision, focusing myopically on provocative cues while neglecting issues that could inhibit aggression.

The researchers tested this on two groups of young subjects: those in the first group drank three to four screwdrivers before the test, while the others stayed sober. After that, all subjects had to compete against another person in a somewhat stressful game requiring very rapid responses. The loser received a variable shock while the winner administered the shock.

Drunk men's belligerence was assessed based on the intensity of the shock they chose to deliver. But the research team also deliberately manipulated some of the subjects' cognitive energies. These subjects, some drunk, some not, had to perform at the same time a difficult memory task.

What the researchers found was that drunks with a non-distracted attention were predictably aggressive, while those with their attention focused elsewhere were in fact less aggressive than their sober counterparts.

This is explained by the fact that the sober men were cognitively intact, so they paid attention to both provocations and distractions, resulting in some low level of aggression, while drunks could not focus on both. Working memory is extremely important for our social behavior, as it governs our capacity for self-reflection and strategic planning. When filled with non-hostile, health-promoting thoughts, it has no more "space" for violent thoughts.