Can aggression lead you to drink more alcohol

1. 8/17/2018 Can Aggression Lead You to Drink More Alcohol? | Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-harm-done/201808/can-aggression-lead-you-drink-more-alcohol 1/3
Verified by Psychology TodayFind a Therapist (City or Zip)
David S. Chester Ph.D.
The Harm Done
Source: Pixabay, free for commercial use via CC0
Creative Commons license.
Can Aggression Lead You to Drink More
Alcohol?
A new study suggests that it can.
Posted Aug 06, 2018
SHARE TWEET EMAIL MORE
It’s a well-established fact that drinking alcohol makes people more aggressive. For instance, 19 out of 20 acts
of violence on a college campus involve alcohol consumption.
This alcohol-aggression link isn’t merely a correlation;
alcohol has a causal effect on increasing aggression.
Dominic Parrott, a psychological scientist at Georgia State
University, has conducted many experiments showing the
ability of alcohol to increase aggression. In one exemplary
study, Dr. Parrott and his colleagues assigned a group of
136 male social-drinkers to drink either an alcoholic
beverage or a non-alcoholic control beverage. Males who
consumed the alcoholic beverage administered greater
shocks to an opponent than those who had consumed the
non-alcoholic control. This is clear evidence that alcohol
increases aggressive behavior.
But what if the opposite is also true? Could aggression
increase the consumption of alcohol?
Some preliminary research suggests that this is the case. In a study of over 1,000 adolescents from high-crime
neighborhoods, a teen’s level of aggression predicted whether they consumed more alcohol in the next year.
For example, more aggressive 14-year olds drank more alcohol at age 15 than their less-aggressive classmates.
These data suggest that the relationship between alcohol and aggression isn’t a one-way street where alcohol
only influences aggression. Instead, it’s likely that alcohol and aggression promote one other in a cyclic fashion.
Yet why would aggression increase how much alcohol people drink at a later time? We examined this possibility
in a research study recently-published in the journal Aggressive Behavior.
We brought a sample of 24 social drinkers into our Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) center. There, they
completed an aggression task in our MRI scanner, in which they repeatedly chose how loud of a noise blast to
administer to an opponent while we measured their brain activity. We replicated some of our past research,
which showed that aggressive behavior is associated with greater activity in parts of the brain that promote the
experience of reward and pleasure.
We then took the participants out of the MRI scanner and set four, frosty beers in front of them, informing them
that they would now complete a taste test of the beers. The experimenter told them to drink as much of the
beer as they would like and not to worry if they got drunk because they’d have to hang out in the lab for a while
anyways. The beers were in fact non-alcoholic, but participants didn’t notice the difference until the experiment
was over and we told them. We found that the more aggressive participants were in the MRI scanner (the louder
US

2. 8/17/2018 Can Aggression Lead You to Drink More Alcohol? | Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-harm-done/201808/can-aggression-lead-you-drink-more-alcohol 2/3
References
Chester, D. S. & DeWall, C. N. (2018). Aggression is associated with greater subsequent alcohol consumption: A shared neural
basis in the ventral striatum. Aggressive Behavior, 44(3), 285-293.
SHARE TWEET EMAIL MORE
they set the noises that blasted their opponent), the more beer they subsequently drank. These results were
obtained from a small sample, but they provide preliminary evidence that aggressive behavior can predict
greater alcohol consumption.
We also found that this link between aggression and subsequent alcohol consumption was explained by the
extent to which participants exhibited activation in areas of the brain that are reliably linked to reward during the
aggression act. This finding was observed even after we controlled for the influence of personality features such
as sensation-seeking. Thus, our study suggests a specific mechanism that links aggression to greater alcohol
consumption: reward. The sweetness of revenge may "bleed out" onto other behaviors such as drinking alcohol,
rendering them more appealing than before the aggressive act. This specific reward-based brain mechanism
may serve to reinforce the reciprocal bonds between aggression and alcohol consumption.
Indeed, the two-way street that flows between alcohol and aggression may be paved with the pleasure of both
of these acts.
COMMENT
About the Author
David S. Chester, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of social psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. In this
role, he studies the causes and consequences of aggression and rejection.
View Author Profile
Most Popular
The Most Important Personality Trait
You’ve Never Heard of
4 Relationship Questions We Intuitively
Answer Incorrectly
The Gullibility of the Narcissist: What You
Need to Know
How to Spot a Narcissist in 3 Steps
Find a Therapist
Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today.
City or Zip
Cities:
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Baltimore, MD
Jacksonville, FL
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA
Phoenix, AZ
Pittsburgh, PA
Portland, OR
US

3. 8/17/2018 Can Aggression Lead You to Drink More Alcohol? | Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-harm-done/201808/can-aggression-lead-you-drink-more-alcohol 3/3
More Like This
Why Do Poorer and Dumber People Smoke More, Drink More Soda, but Drink Less Alcohol?
Can Alcoholics Ever Drink Moderately?
The More I Drink, the Prettier You Get.
I'm Sorry If You Can't Drink Alcohol
Social Drinking: How Do You Handle a New Friend Who Drinks Too Much?
Are you a Therapist?
Get Listed Today
Boston, MA
Brooklyn, NY
Charlotte, NC
Chicago, IL
Columbus, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Detroit, MI
Houston, TX
Indianapolis, IN
Louisville, KY
Memphis, TN
Miami, FL
Milwaukee, WI
Minneapolis, MN
Nashville, TN
New York, NY
Oakland, CA
Omaha, NE
Philadelphia, PA
Raleigh, NC
Sacramento, CA
Saint Louis, MO
San Antonio, TX
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
San Jose, CA
Seattle, WA
Tucson, AZ
Washington, DC
Recent Issues
United States
Subscribe Today!
About Privacy Terms Australia Canada United Kingdom International
Psychology Today © 2018 Sussex Publishers, LLC
US