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Category: Project

Description: Why do people drink more alcohol following a negative emotional experience in the laboratory, but this association is not observed in everyday life? One possible explanation is that people make a value-based decision whether to regulate their emotions via alcohol or an alternative, and that this process obscures the observation of drinking-to-cope in everyday life. If this is the case, immediately following a negative emotional event the value for alcohol should increase primarily in heavy drinkers, whereas in light drinkers, alternative ways of coping should be valued. We conducted a preregistered online experiment (N = 200) with a mixed design (between: heavy vs light drinker; within: negative/neutral/positive mood induction). In each of three experimental sessions, participants first provided value ratings for a set of alcohol and food stimuli. Second, they were subjected to a mood induction. Third, they made forced choices between either two alcohol or food stimuli. We then applied a drift diffusion model to these data and tested whether alcohol- and food-related decision-making parameters are differentially affected following the mood inductions in heavy and light drinkers. In preregistered analyses we found that heavy drinkers did not value alcohol more but valued food less after the negative mood induction. Exploratory analyses uncovered that both heavy- and light-drinking participants valued alcohol more following the negative mood induction if they reported high alcohol craving at the start of the session. Collectively, these results provide some evidence for the idea that drinking-to-cope might be a value-based decision-making process.