Alcohol and Sexual Assault

Alcohol Research & Health, Wntr, 2001 by Antonia Abbey, Tina Zawacki, Philip O. Buck, Monique Clinton, Pam Mcauslan

The process just described can occur even in the absence of alcohol use. However, alcohol consumption can exacerbate the likelihood of misperception, thereby increasing the chances of sexual assault. Before describing these dynamics, the laboratory research findings on alcohol's effects on aggressive and sexual behavior should be reviewed.

General Research on Alcohol's Effects on Aggressive and Sexual Behavior

To determine which alcohol effects are attributable to alcohol's pharmacology and which are attributable to culturally learned beliefs, researchers have utilized the balanced placebo design or some of its recent modifications (Martin and Sayette 1993; Rohsenow and Marlatt 1981). In the standard balanced placebo study, participants are randomly assigned to one of the following four groups:

* Participants who expect and receive an alcoholic beverage

* Participants who expect an alcoholic beverage but receive a nonalcoholic beverage

* Participants who expect a nonalcoholic beverage but receive an alcoholic beverage

* Participants who expect and receive a nonalcoholic beverage.

With this experimental design, effects that occur only in participants who received an alcoholic beverage, whether or not they expected it, can be considered to result from alcohol's pharmacological actions. Conversely, effects that occur only in participants who expect to receive alcohol, whether or not they actually consume an alcoholic beverage, can be considered to result from alcohol expectancies.

Researchers who have examined the pharmacological versus psychological effects of alcohol have come to different conclusions depending on whether the variable of interest in the outcome was aggression or sexuality. The effects of alcohol on aggression appear to be principally pharmacological. Thus, in studies using the balanced placebo design, alcohol's effects were usually observed in the participants who consumed alcohol, but not in the participants who only expected to consume alcohol (Ito et al. 1996). In addition, aggressiveness increased with the alcohol dose (Taylor and Chermack 1993).

Most investigators agree that alcohol's effects on aggressive behavior are mediated by alcohol-induced cognitive deficits. Alcohol consumption disrupts higher order cognitive processes-- including abstraction, conceptualization, planning, and problem-solving-- making it difficult for the drinker to interpret complex stimuli. Thus, when under the influence of alcohol, people have a narrower perceptual field and can attend only to the most obvious (i.e., salient) cues in a given situation (Taylor and Chermack 1993). In aggression-inducing situations, the cues that usually inhibit aggressive behavior (e.g., concerns about future consequences or a sense of morality) are typically less salient than feelings of anger and frustration. Therefore, when a person is intoxicated, inhibitory cues are ignored or minimized, making aggression seem like the most reasonable response.

In contrast, studies of alcohol's influence on sexual behavior have found more psychological effects. In men, high alcohol doses generally reduce physiological sexual responding, whereas low and moderate alcohol doses increase subjective sexual arousal. Many studies have demonstrated that men who believe they have consumed alcohol experience greater physiological and subjective sexual arousal in response to erotic materials depicting consensual and forced sex than do men who believe they have consumed a nonalcoholic beverage, regardless of what they actually drank (Crowe and George 1989).