InsaneJournal

Current location:	Monchengladbach, Germany
Current mood:	loved
Entry tags:	addiction, alcohol, alcoholism, behaviour, binge drinking, culture, drinking, expectation, placebos, psychology, pubs, sexuality, trash culture, violence

Drunken behaviour is related to expectations and the environment
Added a quote to "Alcohol: The social and medical story" by Vexen Crabtree, "The Social Effects of Alcohol are Cultural" (2006):

“It appears that some of the short-term effects of ingesting small amounts of alcohol are as strongly related to the drinker's expectations about the effects of the drug as they are to its chemical action on the body. For example, alcohol is commonly thought to stimulate aggression and increase sexual responsiveness. Research has shown, however, that these reactions may not be caused by alcohol itself but by the drinker's beliefs about alcohol's effects. In experiments demonstrating these points, participants are told that they are consuming a quantity of alcohol when they are actually given an alcohol-free beverage with its taste disguised. They subsequently become more aggressive (Lang et al., 1975) and report increased sexual arousal (Wilson & Lawson, 1976). People who actually drink alcohol also report increased sexual arousal, even though alcohol makes them less aroused physiologically (Farkas & Wilson, 1976). Once again, cognitions have a demonstratably powerful effect on behaviour.”

"Abnormal Psychology" by Davison & Neale, p299

To curb street violence, increased education on what the effects of alcohol really are is required, and so is changing the nature of the environment in which alcohol is drunk (and especially where binge-drinking occurs). Both of these things require a change of the basic, common drinking habits of those who frequent pubs.

The reason that I point out things like this on my pages is that such basic education can increase the responsibility that people take for their own behaviour. So much behaviour is a case of people trying to think of reasons and excuses why they can behave badly, and more freely... if they realized that they had more control over themselves than they thought (including self-initiated freedom), they would be better people all-round. It also annoys me no-end when the excuse for being late for work, for being destructive, sexually aggressive, irresponsible, is "I was drunk!". This especially occurs in my own workplace!