What’s New in Psychology?

Self-consciousness May be Related to Binge Drinking   

Jim Windell

            If you’re overly self-conscious as a young adult, you may do more binge drinking. On the other hand, as you mature as an overly self-conscious individual you may have fewer binge drinking.

            That seems to be two of the conclusions that could be drawn from a new study recently published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research.

            Researchers from the Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, set out to explore links between social attention and problem drinking trajectories over a two-year span. Noting that the majority of alcohol consumption takes place in the social context and that social motives represent the most widely endorsed reasons for consuming alcohol among young adults, the researchers aimed to examine attentional focus (self vs. other) during social exchange among participants assigned to consume an alcoholic or a control beverage.

           A range of theories have been proposed to explain the role of social processes in alcohol reinforcement and the subsequent development of alcohol problems. Many of the more influential of these theories highlight the role of social-attentional processes in the etiology of alcohol problems. The “self-awareness model” represents one such theory seeking to elucidate the pathway from environmental and social stressors to problem drinking. The “self-awareness model” proposes that alcohol exerts its rewarding properties by decreasing one's self-awareness (i.e., self-focused attention) during social interaction. Specifically, alcohol is theorized to reduce drinkers' sensitivity to self-relevant cues regarding appropriate behaviors – an effect that may be particularly pronounced and rewarding for people with a natural inclination toward high dispositional levels of self-consciousness in social contexts when sober, as interpersonal interactions tend to prompt self-evaluative processes. The self-awareness model predicts that individuals with elevated self-focused attention (i.e., high self-consciousness) while not intoxicated are at a greater risk for developing drinking problems.

           In the study, 246 social drinkers, who ranged in age from 21 to 30 and had 15.44  years of education on average, had the characteristics of their drinking behaviors assessed at baseline and longitudinal follow-ups. Individuals were excluded from participation if they (1) had a history of adverse reaction to the amount or type of beverage employed in the study; (2) had a history of alcohol treatment or major problems associated with alcohol, or if they were especially light drinkers or abstainers; (3) had any medical conditions that contraindicate alcohol consumption; (4) dependence on any drug other than nicotine or caffeine; (5) (if female) were pregnant or trying to conceive; or (6) had an extreme body mass index.

           The participants were invited to a laboratory where they engaged in unscripted conversations with another participant. While in separate rooms, participants engaged in video calls where their own and conversation partners’ images were displayed side by side on the monitor. Each participant had two conversations, either with a friend or with a stranger. Researchers tracked participants’ eye movements during the conversation and compared how much time they spent looking at themselves and how much time they spent looking at their conversation partner as a measure of social attention and self-consciousness. At the outset of the study and one and two years after the beginning of the study, participants completed questionnaires about their drinking behavior and occurrences of negative experiences related to alcohol in the prior thirty days.

           The researchers found that the more self-focused a participant was during the video calls, the more binge drinking days they tended to have reported at the outset of the study. Specifically, for each percentage point increase in time participants spent looking at themselves on the screen, there was a 1.3 percent increase in binge drinking days at the outset of the study. And for every one percent increase in time spent looking at the other person on the screen, there was a 1.1 percent decrease in binge drinking days at baseline.

           However, over time, those who were more self-focused in their video calls showed greater declines in binge drinking days. The young adults who looked at themselves more often during their conversations with their friend showed a considerable decrease in binge drinking days – more than a 50 percent reduction each year. The average reduction for all participants was less than 40 percent each year, a typically observed trajectory for this age group.

           In their article, the researchers speculate that people who are self-conscious may be more sensitive to social norms and expectations and, therefore, drink more in their late teens and early twenties when heavy drinking may be more typical and drink less as they get older and norms around drinking change.

           The authors note that it is unclear whether self-consciousness may drive binge drinking, for example, as a coping strategy, or whether it may be a consequence of binge drinking, as heavy drinking can lead to depression and anxiety, which is associated with self-consciousness.

           While it may be conceded that the study’s findings may not be applicable to those with alcohol use disorder because they were excluded from the study, still it appears that the study is a step toward better understanding the role of social attention in drinking behavior.

           To read the original article, find it with this reference:

Han, J.; Fairbairn, C.E.; Venerable, W.J., Brown-Schmidt, S. & Ariss, T. (2024) Examining social attention as a predictor of problem drinking behavior: a longitudinal study using eye-tracking. Alcohol: Clinical & Experimental Research, Early online, https://doi.org/10.1111/acer.15490.