PONDER IT
The mean drunk theory
March 16, 2010
John Sakamoto
Is there any truth to the stereotype that bigger men make meaner drunks?
It's the kind of emotionally charged question you'd think researchers would shy away from, but that didn't deter psychologist Nathan DeWall from not only testing the notion but finding some support for it.
In an experiment involving 438 men and 442 women, participants were randomly given either a cocktail that was equivalent to two or three drinks or a placebo with just a dash of alcohol, according to a report on the sciencenews.org website.
They then competed against a fictitious opponent by seeing how quickly they could press a button that they were told would give their unseen foe a shock to the finger.
The findings? Bigger men in the cocktail group were especially aggressive, while bigger men in the placebo group showed no increases.
Women in the cocktail group, meanwhile, showed very little eagerness to shock another person, period.
DeWall goes out of his way to emphasize that the stereotype is not necessarily accurate.
"There will inevitably be scrawny, intoxicated brawlers and big, nice boozed-up imbibers," he says.
The research appeared in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
John Sakamoto
Toronto Star
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