Don't drink and drive, it's a prime: Cognitive effects of priming alcohol-congruent and incongruent goals among heavy versus light drinkers.

Zachary W Petzel,Jeffrey G Noel

doi:10.1177/1359105320934166

Zachary W Petzel, Jeffrey G Noel

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105320934166

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Abstract

The present experiment assessed implicit alcohol motivations and explicit alcohol expectancies following the interaction between alcohol-congruent (i.e. social drinking) versus incongruent (i.e. driving safety) goal primes and recent drinking habits among college students (n = 176). Heavy drinkers exhibited greater implicit alcohol approach and explicit tension reduction expectancies following social goal primes, while displaying greater implicit alcohol avoidance and explicit cognitive and behavioural impairment expectancies after driving safety goal primes. These findings indicate recent drinking habits interact with goal salience to influence explicit and implicit responses to alcohol, which has implications for the development of interventions to reduce college drinking.

Highlights

Half of college students in the United States engage in heavy episodic drinking (HED), drinking four or more drinks for females or five or more drinks for males in one sitting (White and Hingson, 2013)
Heavy drinkers exhibit stronger baseline alcohol-approach tendencies and associations compared to light drinkers (Field et al, 2008), suggesting interventions aiming to reduce college drinking may lead to more measurable change when targeted towards those engaging in HED
HEDs primed with social goals exhibited greater implicit alcohol approach (n = 45; M = –0.03, SD = 0.48) compared to safety goals (n = 40; M = 0.23, SD = 0.49), suggesting safety primes promoted alcohol avoidance in heavier drinkers, F(1172) = 5.97, p = 0.016, ηp2 = 0.034

Summary

Introduction

Half of college students in the United States engage in heavy episodic drinking (HED), drinking four or more drinks for females or five or more drinks for males in one sitting (White and Hingson, 2013). An understudied manipulation which targets both explicit and implicit cognitions and may be useful in reducing HED among college students is goal priming. Heavy drinkers exhibit stronger baseline alcohol-approach tendencies and associations compared to light drinkers (Field et al, 2008), suggesting interventions aiming to reduce college drinking may lead to more measurable change when targeted towards those engaging in HED. Relevant to potential drinking and health interventions, whether an alcohol-incongruent goal linked to negative alcohol-related outcomes and contexts (e.g. driving under the influence) activates negative alcohol cognitions is unclear. We aimed to inform potential drinking interventions through a preliminary investigation of how activating alcohol-congruent (e.g. socialising) versus alcohol-incongruent (e.g. driving safety) goals influence implicit alcohol motivations and explicit alcohol expectancies between heavy versus light college drinkers. We expected goal activation would be most effective among heavy drinkers

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