Preference for alcohol as a coping mechanism in a task-induced stress situation

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of task-induced stress on participants' mood and to determine if alcohol would be used as a coping mechanism. Individual traits such as personality, alcohol expectancies and self-report consumption behavior were evaluated to assess their impact on participants' use of alcohol as a coping mechanism for task-induced stress. Participants were assigned to either an easy or hard vigilance task. The tasks only differed in the level of discrimination difficulty. The expectation was that individuals in the hard condition would be placed in a heightened stress state.;The last portion of the study incorporated a taste-testing task. The purpose of this task was to assess whether or not stressed participants chose alcohol as a coping mechanism. Participants were given the option of selecting 16 oz. size unbranded alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages to consume in a six-minute period. Participants were led to believe the alcoholic beverages provided contained alcohol, but non-alcoholic equivalents were provided for the beer and wine. Each participant provided ratings about the beverage taste, their subjective experience drinking the beverage, their guess on what the beverage was and why they selected it. Beverage selection and consumption measurements were also gathered. It was hypothesized that individuals in the stressful condition would be more likely to select alcohol in the taste-testing task. It was also hypothesized that a participant's beverage selection would be influenced by personality, alcohol expectancies, and coping strategies.;Overall, participants experienced task-induced stress with the 16-minute vigilance task. DSSQ post-task scores for distress and some aspects of worry increased while task engagement scores decreased. Participants in the hard vigil condition exhibited sharper decreases in task engagement than the easy condition. The only significant difference in coping strategies was for participants in the hard condition who exhibited higher levels of emotion-focused coping. None of the personality factors were significantly correlated with self-reported drinking behavior. Alcohol expectancies were positively correlated with self-reported consumption behavior. Personality was correlated with stress state and coping strategies.;Task difficulty did not significantly influence choice of alcoholic beverage. Analysis of personality data showed that psychoticism and extroversion, but not neuroticism, were related to alcoholic beverage selection. Additionally, psychoticism related to higher levels of post-task worry following performance. However, task difficulty did not moderate the effect of psychoticism on alcohol choice. In the current experimental paradigm, personality factors were the strongest predictor for beverage choice. Beverage choice did not seem to be influenced by task stress.