A multimodal investigation of contextual effects on alcohol's emotional rewards

Abstract

Regular alcohol consumption in unfamiliar social settings has been linked to problematic drinking. A large body of indirect evidence has accumulated to suggest that alcohol's rewarding emotional effects-both negative-mood relieving and positive-mood enhancing-will be magnified when alcohol is consumed within unfamiliar versus familiar social contexts. But empirical research has never directly examined links between contextual familiarity and alcohol reward. In the current study, we mobilized novel ambulatory technology to examine the effect of social familiarity on alcohol reward in everyday drinking contexts while also examining how alcohol reward observed in these field contexts corresponds to reward observed in the laboratory. Heavy social drinking participants (N = 48, 50% male) engaged in an intensive week of ambulatory assessment. Participants wore transdermal alcohol sensors while they reported on their mood and took photographs of their social contexts in response to random prompts. Participants also attended 2 laboratory beverage-administration sessions, during which their emotional responses were assessed and transdermal sensors were calibrated to estimate breathalyzer readings (eBrACs). Results indicated a significant interaction between social familiarity and alcohol episode in everyday drinking settings, with alcohol enhancing mood to a greater extent in relatively unfamiliar versus familiar social contexts. Findings also indicated that drinking in relatively unfamiliar social settings was associated with higher eBrACs. Finally, results indicated a correspondence between some mood effects of alcohol experienced inside and outside the laboratory. This study presents a novel methodology for examining alcohol reward and indicates social familiarity as a promising direction for research seeking to explain problematic drinking. (PsycINFO Database Record

(c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Figures

Figure 1

Participants in the current study took photographs of their environments in response to random prompts, and then indicated their precise relationship with individuals featured in photographs through our photo-cued task. Above are a selection of photographs taken by participants displaying social drinking contexts. All participants whose photographs are displayed above consented for the dissemination of their photos in scientific publications. For the sake of publication, we mask the faces of the individuals displayed in photographs (photographs displayed to participants in the photo-cued task were, of course, unmasked).

Figure 2

A timeline of experimental and ambulatory procedures. In the current study, one experimental laboratory visit (Beverage Administration Session 1) overlapped with the period of ambulatory assessment. The issue of reactivity to experimental procedures is addressed in the results section.

Figure 3

Results revealed a significant interaction between social familiarity and alcohol consumption in predicting positive mood and negative mood in everyday drinking settings. The above graphs reflect the interaction between alcohol and the familiarity variable Average Time Spent, centered at 1SD above and below the mean (-SD was equivalent to “0 hours,” labeled above as ―strangers‖).