Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: The Bacchus Effect: A Mechanism to Explain Risky Choice Under Intoxication

DRMS 博士论文研究：酒神效应：解释中毒状态下危险选择的机制

• 批准号: 0851724
• 负责人: Julie Downs
• 金额: $ 2.51万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-03-01 至 2010-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0851724&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; DRMS; Bacchus

Alcohol use is associated with risky behaviors, such as reckless driving, binge eating, and unprotected sex. In addition to the negative health effects of these behaviors, such as sexually transmitted diseases and obesity, there are significant economic costs to society of such risky behavior. For example, drunk driving costs the American public over 100 billion dollars annually, including monetary costs and lost quality of life, with the majority of this cost borne by people other than the drunk driver. Beyond health and financial costs, there are also costs to emotional well-being, such as the regret, guilt or shame felt after drunken behavior. If we want to prevent or reduce these negative outcomes by targeting alcohol use, we must understand alcohol?s role in risky behavior.Conventional wisdom holds that alcohol blinds people to the risks around them, and many millions of tax dollars have been spent to create educational programs based on this premise. The scientific evidence, however, does not unambiguously support the conventional view. Some research has shown that people are no less able to understand risk information when they are drunk than when they are sober and people may even seek out or find some intrinsic value in risk when drunk. If the conventional model is wrong, then many existing curricula waste time and money, and may even risk the lives of those who believe that such strategies will help them to avoid negative situations, and thus fail to take more effective precautions. This research project tests an alternative model of the mechanism by which alcohol affects risky decisions, focusing on emotional and motivational processes involved when people consider both the risks and the benefits of different situations when they are drunk versus when they are sober. We explore several different kinds of behaviors that are commonly linked to alcohol use, including sexual behavior, food choices, and interpersonal negotiation. If our results show that alcohol leads to risky behavior by changing how much people want an attractive option, rather than affecting people?s ability to understand the risks associated with that option, then we would recommend that educational programs switch from highlighting risks to a new focus on undermining benefits.

饮酒与危险行为有关，例如鲁莽驾驶、暴饮暴食和无保护的性行为。除了这些行为对健康产生负面影响（例如性传播疾病和肥胖）之外，这种危险行为还会给社会带来巨大的经济成本。例如，酒后驾车每年给美国公众造成超过 1000 亿美元的损失，包括金钱成本和生活质量损失，其中大部分成本由醉酒司机以外的人承担。除了健康和经济成本之外，情绪健康也会受到影响，例如醉酒行为后感到后悔、内疚或羞耻。如果我们想通过针对饮酒来预防或减少这些负面后果，我们必须了解酒精在危险行为中的作用。传统观点认为，酒精会使人们忽视周围的风险，并且已经花费了数百万税款来创造酒精。基于此前提的教育计划。然而，科学证据并没有明确支持传统观点。一些研究表明，人们在醉酒时理解风险信息的能力并不比清醒时差，人们甚至可能在醉酒时寻求或发现风险的某些内在价值。如果传统的模式是错误的，那么许多现有的课程就会浪费时间和金钱，甚至可能让那些相信这种策略可以帮助他们避免负面情况的人冒着生命危险，从而无法采取更有效的预防措施。该研究项目测试了酒精影响风险决策机制的另一种模型，重点关注当人们考虑醉酒和清醒时不同情况的风险和好处时所涉及的情感和动机过程。我们探讨了几种通常与饮酒相关的不同行为，包括性行为、食物选择和人际谈判。如果我们的结果表明，酒精通过改变人们想要有吸引力的选择的程度而导致危险行为，而不是影响人们理解与该选择相关的风险的能力，那么我们建议教育计划从强调风险转向新的风险行为。专注于损害利益。