Mild stress increases attentional bias in social drinkers who drink to cope: a replication and extension.

The authors investigated the effects of a laboratory stressor task on rapid initial orienting and delayed disengagement aspects of attentional bias for alcohol-related cues in social drinkers (N = 58). Participants were randomly allocated to receive a stress induction or control manipulation before completing a visual probe task in which alcohol cues were presented for either 100 ms or 500 ms. Results indicated that participants who reported drinking alcohol to cope with negative affect had increased attentional bias for alcohol cues after stress induction. This effect of stress induction on attentional bias was evident when cues were presented for 100 ms and 500 ms, which suggests that stress increases both the initial orienting of attention toward and the delayed disengagement of attention from alcohol-related cues. Theoretical implications of this robust finding are discussed.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes