Jesse Bering
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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Perhaps the only thing stopping me from becoming an alcoholic is the fact that I find the taste of alcohol unconscionably offensive. Beer is sewer water. Rum? Cough syrup. I’m likely betraying my unpolished, suburban upbringing here, but even the crème de la crème of liqueurs—say, a gilded bottle of vintage cognac festooned with Swarovski crystals—might as well be a dressed-up container of Liquid Drano to me. And if you’re ever sitting across from me at a fancy restaurant, note my uncontrollable wincing after I lift my glass in surrender to the moment and the first piquant coat of expensive wine rudely invades my taste buds.
But then, somewhere between that second and fourth glass, the noxiousness of ethanol diffuses into a flavor as harmless as spring water, and the psychological effect is—what can I say—pure magic.
Given the sobering costs of drinking on society (alcohol accounts for 70 percent of fatal traffic accidents, and nearly the same annual percentage of murders, spousal battery and child abuse) alcoholism has justifiably been the focus of considerable attention by clinical psychologists over the years. It’s certainly not my intent to downplay these serious issues associated with drinking. Believe me, here in Northern Ireland I’d wager there are more pubs than there are fast food restaurants in all of Texas, and one needn’t look far in Belfast to see how ruinous alcohol can be on the lives of those affected.
Yet one mustn’t always be a teetotaling bore, either. There is such a thing as responsible drinking; and over the past few decades, fun-loving psychologists have occasionally explored some of the quirky effects of moderate drinking on social behavior and cognition. Dostoyevsky used to refer to vodka as the “Russian God,” which, if you think about it, is still a decent metaphor for the type of spiritual escapism available in an 80 proof bottle of today’s Absolut. In fact, back in 1965, Harvard University psychologists Rudolf Kalin and David McClelland, along with Michael Kahn from Yale University, found precisely this type of “metaphysical” effect of drinking on male college students.
In their long-forgotten article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, these forward-thinking scholars began their piece by hinting at a moralistic conspiracy, asking readers the following question: “Is it possible that the American puritan tradition has led even scientists to overlook some of the ‘positive’ effects of social drinking in stressing that the only value it has is to deaden the individual to real life, to anesthetize him a little so that he suffers less from anxiety?” And so these maverick scientists, eschewing the impolitic nature of their research question, decided to conduct a series of experiments to explore whether moderate drinking inspires creative thought.
The gist of Kalin and his colleagues’ study went something like this. Two comparison groups of male college students were observed in a “natural” setting—for example, a smallish fraternity party or a living room discussion. Unbeknownst to the participants, the groups were randomly assigned to either a “wet” condition (where alcohol was served) or a “dry” condition (where only soft drinks were served). The dry condition therefore was the control condition, but the authors volunteer this inadvertently humorous aside:
Unfortunately, most subjects had expected alcohol to be served at both parties—which was normal on such occasions—so that the subjects in the dry condition were quite angry when they discovered no liquor was available. To keep their cooperation, the experimenter had to promise them a keg of beer after the party was over, but obviously their mood was not ideal for a control or “neutral” condition.
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13 Comments
Add CommentEvery time I hear statistics misused in statements like “alcohol accounts for 70 percent of fatal traffic accidents” I cringe. I am sick and tired of educated people twisting statistics to an uneducated public to push a personal agenda. The actual figure from the DOT is 50% but even that is meaningless. In the time of day and location of each individual accident, what percentage of all drivers on the road had some alcohol in their system? My nephew was in a serious accident caused by a driver running a red light. The driver was sober by my nephew was coming from a restaurant where he had had wine. This goes down as an accident involving alcohol. The misuse of statistics to persuade the public about things that are untrue or misleading is pervasive. The old saying “figures lie and liars figure” is only true with a public that is uneducated on statistics and that needs to change and people masquerading as scientists need to place their personal agenda on the table up front.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Mr. Samadams: What is the personal agenda here? Who wouldn't be for reducing deaths which are preventable by not driving a drinking? (Maybe a bar owner)What difference does it matter if it's 40 percent, 50 percent, 70 percent? How do you know your nephew's accident was included in the statistics? Even though the accident was definitely the other guy's fault, a sober person might have a better chance of driving defensively.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are an amateur - at both drinking and science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're wrong, candide. Bering is a provocateur, and a damn good one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuickly bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may whet my mind and say something clever. - Aristophanes
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"He uses statistics as a drunkard uses a lamp post......for support rather than illumination" I've had a beer and cannot recall who said it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not entirely surprised. Alcohol, like many other psychoactive substances, does reduce inhibitions (leading people to behave less prudently than normal# and acts as a social lubricant #reducing shyness and other traits that might normally keep one acting properly).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes I do believe it would take the entirety of Northern Island to be able to say that there are more pubs than Fast Fooleries in Texas. Although, I'm pretty sure there are more Fast Food places in NY city than the entirety of Texas... Can anyone tell I'm hungry?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading comprehension counts, thehustler, I said he was an amateur at drinking and science, which is obvious by the content of the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeing a provocateur has no necessary connection to science or drinking.
I must say I'm quite suspicious of anyone who continues to drink wine after it "rudely invades" his taste buds, hmmm maybe he has no taste buds, or.... far more sinister- does not drink fine wine?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell. Besides all subtle differences in brain chemistry between several types of drinkers, alcohol remains one of the best ansiolytics available, being as pot a selective depressant of CNS functions, starting from the most recent, phylogenetically and in the individual development, such as inhibitory brain zones, so called superI, and ending in the trunk life sustaining nuclei. I always wanted to test the hypothesis that latent homosexuality can be involved in alcoholism. The subject engages in drinking for reducing anxiety driven by sex pulsions, drinking decreases his or her repression system giving strenght to hidden homoerotic drives, which produces more anxiety that leads to increased drinking, an awful autocrine loop. As italians say "si non e vero e ben trovato". I understand that this is not the place for such comments, but found no other place to do it with some kind of confidentiality. Salut +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI disagree completely with this last sentence and I feel that it causes much confusion about understanding alcoholic behavior. A sober person is able to successfully integrate all of the multitude of impulses which comprise the behavior they exhibit to the world. Alcohol directly interferes with this process and often presents an aberrant often self-destructive behavior from the drug disabled brain of the inebriante who is struggling with the normally instantaneous integration, encountering obfuscation, and spitting out fragmented components of the true personality. I know. I have been there.
Why so grouchy??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif you didn't enjoy the article you can critique the information, not the guy who wrote it.
now THAT is being an amateur.