Abstract
Background:Research suggests that acute alcohol consumption impairs processing of emotional faces. As emotion processing plays a key role in effective social interaction, these impairments may be one mechanism by which alcohol changes social behaviour. This study investigated the effect of individual differences on this relationship by comparing emotion recognition performance after acute alcohol consumption in individuals with high and low trait aggression.Methods:Regular non-dependent drinkers, either high or low in trait aggression participated in a double-blind placebo-controlled experiment (N = 88, 50% high trait aggressive). Participants attended two sessions. In one they consumed an alcoholic drink (0.4 g/kg) and in the other they consumed a matched placebo. They then completed two computer-based tasks: one measured global and emotion-specific recognition performance across six primary emotions (anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, fear, surprise), the other measured processing bias of two ambiguously expressive faces (happy–angry/happy–sad).Results:There was evidence of poorer global emotion recognition after alcohol. In addition, there was evidence of poorer sensitivity to sadness and fear after alcohol. There was also evidence for a reduced bias towards happiness following alcohol and weak evidence for an increased bias towards sadness.Conclusions:These findings suggest that alcohol impairs global emotion recognition. They also highlight a reduced ability to detect sadness and fearful facial expressions. As sadness and fear are cues of submission and distress (i.e. function to curtail aggression), failure to successfully detect these emotions when intoxicated may increase the likelihood of aggressive responding. This coupled with a reduced bias towards seeing happiness may collectively contribute to aggressive behaviour.
Highlights
Evidence suggests that alcohol intoxication is associated with aggressive behaviour (Beck and Heinz, 2013; Chermack and Giancola, 1997; Hoaken and Stewart, 2003)
A meta-analysis of over 30 experimental studies concluded that this association was causal. These authors report an effect of alcohol on aggressive behaviour when an alcohol vs. placebo comparison was made
This study investigated whether emotion processing of facial expressions was affected by acute alcohol consumption in high and low trait aggressive individuals
Summary
Evidence suggests that alcohol intoxication is associated with aggressive behaviour (Beck and Heinz, 2013; Chermack and Giancola, 1997; Hoaken and Stewart, 2003). A meta-analysis of over 30 experimental studies concluded that this association was causal (for review see, Bushman and Cooper, 1990) These authors report an effect of alcohol on aggressive behaviour when an alcohol vs placebo (i.e. non-alcoholic drink administered as alcoholic) comparison was made. Explanations include the impairing effects of alcohol consumption on behavioural control (i.e. response activation and inhibition) (Abroms et al, 2003; Field et al, 2010), stress-dampening (i.e. reduced anxiety and increased approach tendencies) (Sayette, 1993) and the perception of socially relevant cues associated with aggression (i.e. erroneous perception of provocation and threat) (Pernanen, 1991; Steele and Southwick, 1985) The role of these socially relevant cues is of importance given that alcohol is often consumed within a social context. This coupled with a reduced bias towards seeing happiness may collectively contribute to aggressive behaviour
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