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Alcohol is an widely used substance known for contributing to bad decision making, but have you ever wondered why it can have that effect? A study published in Psychopharmacology explores how drinking alcohol may impair consumer’s ability to think about the future, which can cause an inability to understand the consequences of questionable choices made while intoxicated.
Alcohol has a plethora of well-documented side effects, including impairments in memory and changes in executive functioning. Missing from current literature is alcohol’s effect on episodic future thinking, or the ability to imagine a possible future situation. Episodic future thinking is significant when making decisions and deficits in it can cause risky or irresponsible behavior with unwanted or unforeseen outcomes.
Alcohol overconsumption is often related to impulsive decision making, which makes this gap in literature especially important. This study seeks to understand the relationship between alcohol consumption and episodic future thinking.
For their study, Morgan Elliott and colleagues utilized 124 healthy, adult, social drinkers to serve as their sample. Participants were recruited over social networking sites and community advertising. Social drinking was defined as between 2 and 25 units of alcohol weekly for women and 2 to 36 units of alcohol weekly for men.
Participants were asked to abstain from using alcohol or other substances for 24 hours prior to the study. Participants were randomly assigned to either the alcohol or the placebo condition. In the alcohol condition, participants were administered a dose of alcohol that was 0.6g/kg of their body weight, which was moderate intoxication level. All participants completed measures on episodic future thinking, episodic memory, cognitive initiation, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, pre-morbid intelligence, and alcohol use.
Alcohol has a plethora of well-documented side effects, including impairments in memory and changes in executive functioning. Missing from current literature is alcohol’s effect on episodic future thinking, or the ability to imagine a possible future situation. Episodic future thinking is significant when making decisions and deficits in it can cause risky or irresponsible behavior with unwanted or unforeseen outcomes.
Alcohol overconsumption is often related to impulsive decision making, which makes this gap in literature especially important. This study seeks to understand the relationship between alcohol consumption and episodic future thinking.
For their study, Morgan Elliott and colleagues utilized 124 healthy, adult, social drinkers to serve as their sample. Participants were recruited over social networking sites and community advertising. Social drinking was defined as between 2 and 25 units of alcohol weekly for women and 2 to 36 units of alcohol weekly for men.
Participants were asked to abstain from using alcohol or other substances for 24 hours prior to the study. Participants were randomly assigned to either the alcohol or the placebo condition. In the alcohol condition, participants were administered a dose of alcohol that was 0.6g/kg of their body weight, which was moderate intoxication level. All participants completed measures on episodic future thinking, episodic memory, cognitive initiation, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, pre-morbid intelligence, and alcohol use.
A moderate dose of alcohol impairs the ability to imagine a possible future situation
Alcohol is an widely used substance known for contributing to bad decision making, but have you ever wondered why it can have that effect? A study published in Psychopharmacology explores how drinking alcohol may impair consumer’s ability to think about the future, which can cause an inability...
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