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Beer makes the heart grow fonder: single-target implicit attitudes toward beer but not alcohol are related to drinking behaviour in regular beer drinkers

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Netherlands Journal of Psychology

Abstract

Previous studies demonstrated that positive implicit attitudes toward alcohol, assessed with unipolar Implicit Association Tests (IATs), are related to drinking behaviour while negative implicit alcohol attitudes are not. However, because the IAT is a relative measure, the present study aimed at replicating these findings with non-relative unipolar Single Target-IATs (ST-IATs). Further, participants performed ST-IATs with either alcohol or beer as the target concept. Because we only included regular beer drinkers in this study, it was expected that scores on the beer ST-IAT would be more strongly related to drinking behaviour than scores on the alcohol ST-IAT. Consistent with previous findings, both alcohol and beer ST-IATs supported the coexistence of positive and negative implicit alcohol-related attitudes. Further, correlational analyses showed that positive implicit attitudes toward beer were related to drinking behaviour, while negative implicit attitudes were not. Implicit attitudes toward alcohol, in contrast, were unrelated to drinking behaviour. Hence, these findings suggest that the beer ST-IAT assessed more behaviour-relevant implicit attitudes compared with the alcohol ST-IAT. Implications and limitations of these results are discussed and suggestions for future research are given in the discussion. (Netherlands Journal of Psychology, 65, 10-21.)

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Notes

  1. The choice of the exemplars that were used to represent the categories in the ST-IATs was based on ratings that were collected during a pilot study prior to the present study with 68 participants. Based on this pilot study, the exemplars of the (Dutch) alcohol category and the (Dutch) beer category were chosen in such a way that they were matched on familiarity (M = 4.39, SD = 0.87, and M = 3.97, SD = 0.98, respectively), valence (M = 4.20, SD = 0.80, and M = 4.22, SD = 0.87, respectively), arousal (M = 4.21, SD = 0.89, and M = 4.31, SD = 1.21, respectively), and number of syllables. Similarly, the exemplars of the positive and negative category were respectively evaluated as positive (M = 6.16, SD = 0.62) and negative (M = 1.77, SD = 0.54) in this pilot study, while the exemplars of the two neutral categories were evaluated as neutral (M = 4.06, SD = 0.39 and M = 4.11, SD = 0.30). Based on the rating collected during the pilot study, the exemplars for the (Dutch) positive and negative attribute categories, and for the two paired neutral categories were also chosen so that they were matched on familiarity (M = 5.43, SD = 0.90, M = 4.23, SD = 0.90, M = 4.07, SD = 0.85, and M = 4.36, SD = 0.98, respectively), arousal (neutral with respect to arousal; M = 4.76, SD = 0.67, M = 3.94, SD = 0.071, M = 4.29, SD = 0.59, and M = 4.07, SD = 0.56, respectively) and number of syllables.

  2. When we subjected the D600 measure to a 2 (Valence: positive or negative) x 2 (Target: beer or alcohol) x 2 (Order: negative ST-IAT first or positive ST-IAT first) ANOVA with repeated measures on the first factor, results showed no significant main effects or interaction effects (p > 0.45). However, for reasons of clarity and interpretability, we report IAT effects as a function of target (alcohol or beer) and valence (positive ST-IAT or negative ST-IAT).

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    Katrijn Houben

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  1. Katrijn Houben
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Correspondence to Katrijn Houben.

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Maastricht University Submitted 28 July 2008; revision accepted 5 January 2009.Maastricht University, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen and IVO Addiction Research Institute Rotterdam Correspondence to: Katrijn Houben, Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, NL 6200 MD Maastricht

Appendix

Appendix

Target stimuli

Alcohol: wine, Bacardi, whisky, Heineken, Hoegaarden, Amstel (the last three are beer brands).

Beer: Trappist, Pils, Jupiler, Heineken, Hoegaarden, Amstel

Attribute stimuli

Pleasant: love, sunshine, warmth, peace, hug, rainbow

Unpleasant: war, depression, pain, fight, disease, sorrow

Neutral 1: paper, circle, ballpoint, factory, truck, magnet

Neutral 2: letter, square, page, machine, scissors, window

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Houben, K., Wiers, R.W. Beer makes the heart grow fonder: single-target implicit attitudes toward beer but not alcohol are related to drinking behaviour in regular beer drinkers. NEJP 65, 10–21 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03080123

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