Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate what controls the drinking of nonalcoholic drinks by man, and to determine whether drinking control stimuli differ for alcoholic and nonalcoholic individuals, for example, along an internal-external dimension (Schachter, 1967). There is a lack of controlled experimentation on the general drinking of man, although there are experiments on drinking by animals as well as generalised observation of man's drinking in specialised environments. Differential control for drinking alcoholic drinks has been demonstrated in alcoholics and nonalcoholics.
In the main experiment groups of hospitalised alcoholics, hospitalised nonalcoholics, and nonpatients; composed of 50% obese and 5% normal-weight subjects, drank tea under conditions of deprivation and preloading. Preloading (internal cue) inhibited drinking by nonalcoholics but did not affect alcoholics' intake. Alcoholics drank more of their most preferred tea (external cue) and less of a nonpreferred drink (water) than nonalcoholics . The effect of internal and external cues was not related to obesity or hospitalisation.
Experiment 2 extended the analysis of internal drinking cues in a 7 day self-record study of fluid intake and output. Nonalcoholics responded to a diuretic-induced polyuria by drinking more on subsequent days. Alcoholics’ drinking pattern did not change, but they did display urine retention following diuresis. During the baseline period alcoholics drank and urinated more per diem than nonalcoholics.
Experiments 3 and 4 manipulated external drinking cues. Alcoholics were highly responsive to cues of quantity visible (Experiment 3) and drinking environment (Experiment 4). Neither cue had any effect upon nonalcoholics' drinking.
The final experiment investigated a further external cue by having subjects drink alone or in company. Nonalcoholics responded to socialisation; they drank more with a heavy drinker than with a light drinker. This in turn was more than they drank in isolation. Alcoholics' intakes did not differ in any of these three conditions.
Although this finding could be accommodated by postulating concepts of stimulus relevance (Shettleworth, 1972) or stimulus prominence (Schachter, 1971a), it was concluded that the internal-external dimension did not adequately describe the differential drinking of alcoholic and nonalcoholic. A stimulus control formulation was presented, and the possible development of inappropriate control of general drinking as a consequence of alcoholics' habitual excessive ingestion of alcohol was outlined. The relevance of the findings, within the stimulus control framework, to the treatment of alcoholism was reviewed.