TY - JOUR
T1 - Mixing Misery and Gin
T2 - The Effect of Alcohol Administration on Ostracism Response
AU - Fairbairn, Catharine E.
AU - Creswell, Kasey G.
AU - Hales, Andrew H.
AU - Williams, Kipling D.
AU - Wilkins, Kaleigh V.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R01AA025969 to Catharine Fairbairn and R01AA025936 to Kasey Creswell.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - Williams’s need-threat model proposes that ostracism responses are reflexive and, because of their evolutionary significance, difficult to diminish. Alcohol is widely consumed in social contexts and for reasons of coping with social stress, and major theories of alcohol propose that intoxication disrupts cognitive appraisal of environmental threats, leading to stress relief. Surprisingly, though, no well-powered experimental research has examined the impact of alcohol intoxication on distress from social ostracism. In three studies across two independent laboratories (N = 438), participants were randomly assigned to receive either an alcoholic or nonalcoholic (i.e., no-alcohol control or placebo) beverage and were exposed to an ostracism (or social inclusion) manipulation. Results, which emerged as remarkably consistent across all studies, indicated strong and consistent effects of ostracism on mood and needs satisfaction among both intoxicated and sober participants. Findings have important implications for ostracism theory and speak to boundary conditions for alcohol’s ability to relieve stress.
AB - Williams’s need-threat model proposes that ostracism responses are reflexive and, because of their evolutionary significance, difficult to diminish. Alcohol is widely consumed in social contexts and for reasons of coping with social stress, and major theories of alcohol propose that intoxication disrupts cognitive appraisal of environmental threats, leading to stress relief. Surprisingly, though, no well-powered experimental research has examined the impact of alcohol intoxication on distress from social ostracism. In three studies across two independent laboratories (N = 438), participants were randomly assigned to receive either an alcoholic or nonalcoholic (i.e., no-alcohol control or placebo) beverage and were exposed to an ostracism (or social inclusion) manipulation. Results, which emerged as remarkably consistent across all studies, indicated strong and consistent effects of ostracism on mood and needs satisfaction among both intoxicated and sober participants. Findings have important implications for ostracism theory and speak to boundary conditions for alcohol’s ability to relieve stress.
KW - alcohol
KW - laboratory
KW - mechanism
KW - ostracism
KW - social stressor
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U2 - 10.1177/01461672211038450
DO - 10.1177/01461672211038450
M3 - Article
C2 - 34404275
AN - SCOPUS:85113179956
SN - 0146-1672
VL - 48
SP - 1269
EP - 1283
JO - Personality and social psychology bulletin
JF - Personality and social psychology bulletin
IS - 8
ER -