Self-Regulation Failure Reduces the Effect Alcohol Portrayals in Movies on Indirect Attitudes toward Alcohol

Abstract

We investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying change in implicit cognitions following exposure to alcohol portrayals. More precisely, we tested in an experimental study whether this change depends on controlled or automatic processes by putting participants in a state of self-regulatory fatigue prior to being exposed to alcohol portrayals. Ninety participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (attitude measure: before vs after) × 2 (alcohol portrayal: yes vs no) × 2 (ego depletion: yes vs no) mixed design to assess whether the effects of alcohol portrayals affected cognitive resources. It was hypothesized that alcohol portrayals would have more of an impact on participants submitted to an ego-depletion task. We found a change in attitudes toward alcohol only for participants that had been exposed to alcohol portrayals, and who had not been cognitively depleted. These results suggest that these changes rely on controlled, resource-dependent processes rather than on purely associative and automatic processes. Implications regarding alcohol advertising effects on public health are discussed.

Keywords:

• Drug and alcohol use
• self-concept
• motivation

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. We cannot provide a name of the ethical committee that approved this study since no ethical committee existed at University Grenoble-Alpes when the studies were conducted. However, ethical procedures typical to the University Grenoble-Alpes were followed. Informed consent was obtained from all participants and none choose to withdraw from the procedure.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Notes

1 Participants were told they were participating in a study on the ability to imagine and understand a narrative

2 Participant 49 was excluded from analysis on AMP scores based on his Cook value (respectively .11 next being .05). Excluding this participant did not significantly alter the results.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oulmann Zerhouni

Oulmann Zerhouni is an associate professor in experimental psychology at University Paris Nanterre. He works on how self-regulatory processes, such as self-control or emotion regulation, moderate evaluative learning, mainly in applied settings such as health interventions.

Laurent Bègue

Laurent Bègue is professor of social psychology at Grenoble Alpes University and member of the University Institute of France. He is mainly interested in the determinants of aggressive behavior, involving the role of psychoactive substance as well as media influences. He published many research articles and the book “Psychology of good and evil” (2016, Oxford University Press).

Elisa Sarda

Elisa Sarda is doing her post doctorate at Grenoble Alpes University. She has a PhD in social psychology. Her work mostly focuses on media's impact on behavior and attitudes.

Douglas Gentile

Douglas Gentile is interested in both the positive and negative effects of media on children and adults, including media violence, video games, advertising, educational media, news/propaganda, virtual reality, and music. His research is interdisciplinary, drawing on the methodologies and strengths of developmental psychology, social psychology, medicine, communications, and journalism.