title: The influence of alcohol intake and alcohol expectations on the recognition of emotions.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the effects of actual and expected alcohol intake on the detection and interpretation of the basic emotions happiness and anger in facial expressions.
  
  
  METHODS
  n = 102 healthy participants performed a dynamic emotion recognition task before and after receiving a drink which contained either a moderate alcohol dose or no alcohol in a double-blind design.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The actual alcohol intake had no effect on detecting and interpreting facial expressions. However, subjects who expected to drink alcohol judged facial expressions significantly more often as happy. No effects were observable for the recognition of anger in facial expressions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results corroborate recent studies that found that the belief of consuming alcohol does not increase anger recognition or aggressive behavior but decreases aggression and social stress.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Kaiser-Karl-Ring 9, Bonn, Germany. nora.walter@uni-bonn-diff.de
authors.forename: Nora T
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.forename: Smiljana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mutic
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Markett
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Montag
authors.forename: Alisa M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reuter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D000786:Anger; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D004644:Emotions; D000431:Ethanol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000187:drug effects*; D012919:Social Behavior
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol