The effects of alcohol intoxication and gender on the social information processing of hostile provocations involving male and female provocateurs.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of acute alcohol intoxication and gender on the social information processing of hostile provocations involving male and female provocateurs. A sample of 82 participants (50% women) was randomly assigned to either an alcohol, placebo or control group. Participants completed a baseline assessment and a social information processing protocol. The protocol consisted of 12 videotaped provocation scenarios with gender of provocateur and level of hostility (hostile versus nonhostile) crossed (three scenarios for each combination). Note: Female participants viewed 12 scenarios that presented a female target and male participants viewed 12 scenarios that presented a male target. Participants viewed each scenario separately and responded to questions from an interviewer via an intercom. Questions tapped the social information processing domains of encoding, response representation, goal selection, response generation, response evaluation and response selection. Analyses showed a pattern of results whereby intoxicated men evidenced a greater degree of hostile response representation, a greater proportion of aggressive goal selection, greater aggressive response generation and greater aggressive response selection than all other group-by-gender combinations. These results were found most often for scenarios where the intent was hostile and the provocateur was male. The pattern of findings was consistent with past research on the relationship between alcohol, social information processing and aggression as well as with behavioral studies of the alcohol-aggression link. The social information processing model used in this study appears to be useful for the study of cognitive processes in the causal link between acute alcohol intoxication and aggressive behavior.