Alcohol induced attitude change

Abstract: The present thesis includes four empirical studies intended to investigate certain conditions for awareness of attitude change and the attitude change patterns linked to mild alcohol intoxication. In study 1, retrospective ratings of initial attitudes exhibited a clear and significant displacement towards the position of post-influence attitudes, and this displacement was larger with more relevant issues. In study 2, two separate experiments were carried out. The first experiment consisted of two sessions. In the first session subjects gave ratings on seven attitudes and two beliefs. The second session, which was carried out after one month, repeated the ratings with half the subjects being given ethanol to produce a 0.02 - 0.03% blood level during the rating. The other half repeated the ratings after the ingestion of a non-alcoholic drink. Only the group receiving ethanol showed significant changes in ratings. The magnitude and direction of these changes varied with the attitude or belief rated. In the second experiment, subjects gave ratings on seven attitudes on two occasions, separated by an interval of one month. On the second occasion, all subjects were administered ethanol giving the same level of intoxication as in the first experiment. Significant changes in ratings were again observed, with the direction and magnitude of changes consistent with that seen in Experiment 1. Whether subjects were rated as relatively high or low consumers of alcohol was not significantly associated with changes in ratings. In study 3 the influence of gender and pre-test mood on alcohol-induced attitude change were investigated. In two sessions with a 33 day interval subjects rated attitudes towards six issues, their pre-test mood and their own impressionability. In the second session the experimental half of the group was intoxicated as in study 2, whereas the control half of the group repeated the procedure from the first session. Only the experimental group showed significant changes. These varied in magnitude with the different issues and indicated a tendency of increased risk-taking during intoxication. Gender and pre-intoxication mood appeared to be uncorrelated with the attitude change. Subjects rated their own impressionability to be lower while intoxicated. The results were interpreted to indicate regression to, or disinhibition of, usually less accepted behaviour during alcohol intoxication. In study 4, subjects rated attitudes towards 7 issues in the first session. In the second session subjects were administered alcohol as in previous studies. Here an attitude change was registered which was greater for the 50 % of the subjects who were smokers and varied in magnitude depending on issue and smoker/non-smoker subject. In a third, unintoxicated session, there was no significant attitude change from the first session. A general summary of the results is that mild intoxication seems to be associated with an attitude shift pattern in a less responsible, more risk-taking direction.