Abstract
Background. Evolutionary theory-driven alcohol prevention programs for adolescents are lacking. This study introduced a binge drinking impression formation paradigm to test whether emphasizing sexual dysfunction induced by alcohol abuse lowers positive attitudes and expectancies related to binge drinking when compared with cognitive or long-term health consequences. Method. In a between-subjects experiment, 269 French high school students (age, M = 15.94, SD = 0.93, 63.20% women) watched professional-quality videos emphasizing sexual impotence (n = 60), cognitive impairment (n = 72), or long-term effects (cancer, cardiovascular disease, n = 68) induced by alcohol and then had to evaluate a drinking scene. We predicted that the video on impotence would be the most impactful when compared with the other videos. Results. Results showed that women evaluated the target as less attractive after viewing the cognitive video compared with the video on impotence. Men were more willing to play sports against the target after viewing the cognitive video, compared with the video on impotence. Conclusions. These results showed that evolutionary meaning might shape impressions formed by participants depending on the context. This study calls for further replications using the same design and materials.
Highlights
Accepted: 24 May 2021Alcohol is a harmful substance per se and has a direct impact on many risky related behaviors and the World Health Organization considers alcohol production and consumption as highly relevant for the 2030Agenda for Sustainable Development [1]
We introduced an impression formation paradigm grounded in evolutionary psychology in order to develop a preliminary education campaign targeting harms associated with drinking that could theoretically cause downstream reductions in drinking
While several social theories have investigated the correlational nature of such behavior [4,6,7,25,26], to our knowledge, no evolutionary theory has been used to build an impression formation paradigm targeting binge drinking impression formation
Summary
Accepted: 24 May 2021Alcohol is a harmful substance per se and has a direct impact on many risky related behaviors (sexual conduct, suicide, and road traffic injuries) and the World Health Organization considers alcohol production and consumption as highly relevant for the 2030Agenda for Sustainable Development [1]. Alcohol is a harmful substance per se and has a direct impact on many risky related behaviors (sexual conduct, suicide, and road traffic injuries) and the World Health Organization considers alcohol production and consumption as highly relevant for the 2030. Individuals over 15 years old have seen their alcohol per capita consumption increased from 5.5 liters of pure alcohol in 2005 to 6.4 in 2016 with a recent decrease in Western Europe and the U.S [2,3]. Past decades have seen the emergence of numerous social-psychological theories of binge drinking. Oei and Morawska [4], for instance, proposed the use of a cognitive framework based on alcohol expectancies and drinking refusal self-efficacy to explain four drinking styles: social drinkers, binge drinkers, regular heavy drinkers, and alcoholics
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