Alcohol: Is the Medium the Message?
The effects of alcohol on behaviour are determined by cultural rules and norms, not by the chemical actions of ethanol.
This basic fact has been proved time and again … in carefully controlled scientific experiments – double-blind, placebos and all. To put it very simply, the experiments show that when people think they are drinking alcohol, they behave according to their cultural beliefs about the behavioural effects of alcohol. …
Those who most strongly believe that alcohol causes aggression are the most likely to become aggressive when they think that they have consumed alcohol. … These experiments show that even when people are very drunk, if they are given an incentive (either financial reward or even just social approval) they are perfectly capable of remaining in complete control of their behaviour – of behaving as though they were totally sober.
BBC report via Robin Hanson, with commentary.
Under the influence of alcohol people behave as they believe they are expected to behave. Interesting!
Drunk drivers swerve into oncoming traffic because of prevailing cultural beliefs, do I understand that right? In reality, they’re in complete control of their behavior.
Brian makes a good point. However, I can see how fraternity brothers engage in outrageous behavior not because all self-control or inhibition is gone; but because they believe it is social acceptable among their peers — even expected – that they engage in outrageous behavior when inebriated in the course of drunken revelry.
“In high doses, alcohol impairs our reaction times, muscle control, co-ordination, short-term memory, perceptual field, cognitive abilities and ability to speak clearly”.
If this is the case, why would we be expected to behave “normal” after drinking? I say alcohol’s influence to our behavior is real and it has a lot to do with more than just cultural beliefs.
The conclusions reached by these experiments are limited, but I think it’s probably accurate that a good portion of the population is capable of maintaining control while drunk given the right incentives.
There is also, however, a sizable chunk of the population (maybe 5-10 percent), that are not very well able to control themselves when drunk.
That 5-10 percent are probably the ones most prone to make mistakes, cause accidents, etc.
Actually auto accidents and alcohol drinking is not as clear-cut as common wisdom believes.
Night driving, driving while tired (later at night after being out), younger, inexperienced drivers, and risk takers all have higher accident rates than the general public, even without alcohol consumption.
Studies about alcohol and accidents do not include these other accident causative factors. If they did, the increase in accident rates from effects of alcohol consumption would be greatly diminished and maybe even found to be not statistically significant.
By excluding the additional causative factors, the studies would show a continuing need to lower alcohol consumption to lower auto accident rates. The vested interest groups which fund the studies and which lobby for lower alcohol consumption do not have any interest in seeing studies showing a lower effect of alcohol consumption on driving accidents.
When variables are correlated among themselves, multicollinearity, or when variables are excluded, the strength of the effect on the outcome of any of the included variables, like alcohol consumption, cannot be determined accurately. Alcohol’s correlation with the missing variables may make it appear that it is a cause of accidents when in effect it may not be.