Peer Review Round 2 of “Alcohol Cues and Their Effects on Sexually Aggressive Thoughts”
Alcohol and its effects on aggression have been the subject of many discussions and research papers. Despite this fact, there is still a debate surrounding what it is exactly about alcohol that causes aggression. The current study sought to replicate the past finding by Bartholow and Heinz (2006) that alcohol cues without consumption increase the accessibility of aggressive thoughts, which can then influence aggressive behaviors. In the present study, participants had to complete a lexical decision task that was set up to assess whether aggressive words were detected faster in the presence of alcohol-related pictures compared to neutral pictures. The results of this study did not replicate the expected finding as only a main effect of word type was found in which participants detected neutral words faster than aggressive words. Furthermore, the study aimed to assess the role of gender stereotype acceptance levels in this association, but due to faulty design considerations, such analyses were not possible. The results are discussed in terms of the limitations of the study, and propositions for future directions are addressed.