Major and Classification
Business, Mathematics
Faculty Mentors
- Professor Mitchell Earleywine
Department
- Business & Mathematics
McNair Project
“The Role of Implicit and Explicit Alcohol Consumption Expectancies in Predicting External Aggressive Behavior”
This study measured implicit and explicit alcohol expectancies for aggression, their relationship to self-reported aggressive behaviors and their potential link to dispositional aggression. This study focused specifically on physical and verbal dispositional aggression in relation to those aforementioned variables. A sample of 185 participants, the majority of whom were undergraduates at the University of Southern California, participated in the experiment. The participants completed a 35-40 minute survey that consisted of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the Alcohol Expectancies Regarding Sex, Aggression and Sexual Vulnerability (AESASVQ), Buss Perry Questionnaire, the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire, Adolescent Version (AEQ-A) Questionnaire and other demographic measures. The Buss-Perry Physical Aggression subscale correlated strongly with the AESASVQ, including specific items that reported slapping/hitting another person, threatening to hurt another individual, and pushing/shoving someone after consuming alcohol. These findings supported the hypothesis that there is a connection between alcohol consumption and aggressive acts, specifically physical behavior.