Context of drinking and reinforcement from alcohol: alcoholic patterns.
Alcohol is perceived as producing a variety of kinds of reinforcement. The present study examined whether alcohol reinforcement varied with the usual social and physical context of drinking for 268 male and female adult alcoholics. Results indicate that alcoholics anticipate different types of reinforcement from alcohol depending on their usual companions when drinking. In general, those drinking in more impersonal social contexts expect a greater reinforcing impact from drinking than peers who drink in more intimate contexts. Alcohol reinforcement expectancies of men were not found to differ in terms of the usual physical context of drinking.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology*; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012919:Social Behavior