The acute effects of alcohol on social cognition: A systematic review of experimental studies

Elsevier

Available online 2 March 2023, 109830

Drug and Alcohol DependenceAuthor links open overlay panel, , , , Highlights•

This systematic review focused on social cognition changes after drinking alcohol.

High alcohol doses (>0.8 g alcohol/kg body weight) tend to have negative effects.

Low doses (<0.4 g/kg) may have some positive effects, e.g., on emotion recognition.

Interpersonal characteristics may mediate the effects but remain understudied.

AbstractRationale

Alcohol effects on social cognition have been studied by measuring facial emotion recognition, empathy, Theory of Mind (ToM) and other forms of information processing.

Objectives

Using the PRISMA guidelines, we reviewed experimental studies that examined effects of alcohol on social cognition.

Methods

Scopus, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Embase were searched between July 2020 - January 2023. The PICO strategy was used for identifying participants, interventions, comparators, and outcomes. Participants (N=2330) were adult social alcohol users. Interventions consisted of acute alcohol administration. Comparators included placebo or the lowest alcohol dose. Outcome variables were grouped into three themes: facial processing, empathy and ToM, and perceptions of inappropriate sexual behavior.

Results

A total of 32 studies were reviewed. Studies measuring facial processing (67%) often found no effects of alcohol on the recognition of specific emotions, effects facilitated emotion recognition at lower doses but worsened emotion recognition at higher doses. In studies measuring empathy or ToM (24%), lower doses were more likely to lead to improvements while higher doses were generally impairing. Within the third group of studies (9%), moderate to high alcohol doses made it more difficult to perceive sexual aggression accurately.

Conclusions

Lower alcohol doses might sometimes help facilitate social cognition, but most data were in line with the idea that alcohol tends to worsen social cognition, particularly at higher doses. Future studies might focus on examining other moderators of the effects of alcohol on social cognition, particularly interpersonal characteristics such as trait emotional empathy and participant and target gender.

Keywords

alcohol

social cognition

emotion recognition

empathy

theory of mind

aggression

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.

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