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Journal
of
Abnormal Psychology
1995, Vol.
104,
No. 1,
114-122Copyright 1995
by the
American Psychological
Association,
Inc.
0021-843X/95/S3.00
Alcohol
and
Human Emotion:
A
Multidimensional Analysis
Incorporating
Startle-Probe
Methodology
Werner
G. K.
Stritzke,
Christopher
J.
Patrick,
and
Alan
R.
Lang
Florida
State
University
The
effect
of
alcohol
intoxication
on
emotional
response
was
investigated using
a
model
of
emotion
that includes
both
arousal
and
valence dimensions. Thirty-six university
students
were exposed
to
multiple
presentations
of
photographic slides
selected
to
elicit
distinctive
emotional
reactions
rang-
ing
from very
pleasant
to
very
unpleasant;
half
of
them received
a
moderate
(approximately
.75
ml/
kg)
dose
of
ethanol.
The
students'
psychophysiological
responses
indicated
that
both
general
startle
reactivity
and
autonomic
indices
specific
to
emotional
arousal
were diminished
by
alcohol.
However,
the
affective
modulation
of
startle,
occurring
with emotional
states
manipulated
by
slides with dis-
tinct valences, remained
intact.
These
findings
suggest
that
"stress-response
dampening"
by
alcohol
may
involve
a
nonspecific attenuation
of
arousal
reactions
evident
for
positive
as
well
as
negative
stimuli
and
that
theories
of
motivation
for
drinking
that
are
based
on
mood alteration
may
need
refinement.
The
common notion that drinking alters emotional response
and
that people drink
to
obtain
this
effect
is
reflected
in
their
reports
of
their expectations
of
alcohol (Goldman, Brown,
&
Christiansen, 1987)
and
their motives
for
drinking (Cooper,
Russell,
Skinner,
&
Windle,
1992).
Emotional variables also
play
a
central role
in
prominent theories
of
problem drinking
(e.g.,
Marlatt
&
Gordon,
1985).
Yet,
after
years
of
investigation,
much
of it
focusing
on the
purported
anxiolytic
or
stress-reduc-
ing
effects
of
alcohol (e.g., Cappell
&
Greeley,
1987),
the
rela-
tion
between drinking
and
affect
remains uncertain.
In the
pres-
ent
investigation,
we
sought
to
unravel some
of
this
confusion
by
incorporating recently developed psychophysiological tech-
niques
for
measuring emotional valence into
the
study
of
alco-
hol and
affect.
Like
Peter Lang
and his
colleagues (Lang, 1985; Lang, Brad-
ley,
&
Cuthbert,
1990),
we
conceptualize emotions
as
"action
dispositions"
or
response tendencies that
can be
described
in
terms
of two
primary dimensions: arousal,
reflecting
the
inten-
sity
of the
affective
disposition
(from
quiescence
to
vigorous
ac-
tivation);
and
valence
or
pleasantness,
referring
to the
direction-
ality
of the
response tendency
(from
appetitive-approach
to
defensive-withdrawal).
Self-reports
have
been used
to tap
these
Werner
G. K.
Stritzke, Christopher
J.
Patrick,
and
Alan
R.
Lang,
De-
partment
of
Psychology,
Florida
State
University.
This
research
was
supported
in
part
by
National Institute
on
Alcohol
Abuse
and
Alcoholism
Grant
AA09381.
Alan
R.
Lang
and
Christopher
J.
Patrick
contributed
equally
to the
project.
It was
conducted
by
Wer-
ner G. K.
Stritzke
in
partial
fulfillment
of
thesis requirements
for his
Master
of
Science degree, completed under
the
supervision
of
Alan
R.
Lang.
We
gratefully acknowledge
the
assistance
of
Beth
Fish,
Heather
Flynn,
Christine Gray, Christie
Grimes,
Stacey
Lavoro,
Kristin Pfen-
ninger,
Laura
Russo,
Jennifer Sillence,
and
Karla
Stormo
in
pilot testing
and
data
collection
for
this experiment.
Correspondence
concerning
this
article should
be
addressed
to
Alan
R.
Lang,
Department
of
Psychology,
Florida
State
University, Talla-
hassee,
Florida
32306-1051.
dimensions
(e.g., Russell
&
Mehrabian,
1977),
but a
subjective
approach depends
on
individual perceptions
and is
vulnerable
to
intentional distortion. Alternatively, psychophysiological
measures
can
provide more precise information about action
dispositions (cf. Lang, 1985).
To
date,
however,
most research
on
alcohol
and
emotion
has
involved
the use of a
unidimen-
sional approach
to the
psychophysiology
of
emotion, emphasiz-
ing
autonomic indicators directed mainly
at
measurement
of
arousal. What
has
been missing
is a
specific,
physiological index
of
the
valence component
of
emotion. Recent evidence indi-
cates that
affectively
modulated variation
in
reflexive
reactions
to
startling stimuli
can
capture this dimension.
Vrana,
Spence,
and
Lang
(1988)
demonstrated that
the
mag-
nitude
of
normal human startle reactions
to
unsignaled noise
"probes"
presented during
the
viewing
of
photographic slides
is
influenced
by the
valence
of the
emotional dispositions elicited
by
those slides, independent
of
their arousal value:
the
reflex
is
potentiated when elicited during unpleasant slides
and
inhib-
ited during pleasant slides, both relative
to
neutral. This
effect
has
been replicated
in
numerous subsequent studies reviewed
by
Lang
et
al.
(1990),
who
theorized that
the
effect
of
emotional
valence
on
startle
is a
function
of
synergistic
matching
or
antag-
onistic mismatching
of the
aversive startle-probe with
the
ongo-
ing
affective
state.
In
other words,
defensive
startle reaction
to a
sudden noise
is
accentuated during unpleasant states because
the
ongoing response disposition
is
also
defensive.
Conversely,
defensive
responses
to
probes during pleasant states
are
attenu-
ated because
the
ongoing disposition
is
appetitive, rather than
defensive.
The
availability
of a
convenient,
reflexive
measure
of
emo-
tional valence
has
considerable potential
for
advancing
our un-
derstanding
of
psychopharmacology,
and
some
of
that potential
has
already been realized
in
animal conditioning studies (see
Davis,
1986,
for a
review).
Anxiolytic
drugs
like
diazepam
and
clonidine selectively block fear-potentiated
startle—the
en-
hancement
of
startle reaction that normally occurs
in the
pres-
ence
of a cue
previously paired with
an
aversive stimulus such
114
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