The effects of alcohol on positive emotion during a comedy routine: A facial coding analysis.

Abstract

There is considerable interest in understanding the emotional effects of alcohol. While a great deal of experimental research has focused on alcohol's ability to relieve negative emotions, there has been far less focus on the effects of alcohol on positive emotions. Further, the available research on positive emotion tends to test alcohol while participants are alone. Yet alcohol is often consumed in social settings, and enhancing social pleasure is consistently identified as being a primary motive for drinking. We aimed to address this gap in the literature by investigating the impact of alcohol on positive emotional experience in a social setting. We used the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to examine in a large sample the effects of alcohol on response to comedy in a group setting. Five hundred thirteen social drinkers (51.9% female) were assembled into groups of three unacquainted persons and administered either a moderate dose of alcohol, a placebo, or a nonalcohol control beverage. Following beverage consumption, groups listened to a roughly 5-min comedy clip while their facial expressions were video recorded. More than 5 million frames of video were then FACS-coded. Alcohol consumption enhanced enjoyment (Duchenne) smiles-but not nonenjoyment social smiles-and elevated mood ratings. Results provide multimodal evidence supporting the ability of alcohol to enhance positive emotional experience during a comedy routine delivered in a social context. More broadly, this research illustrates the value of studying emotion in a social context using both self-report and behavior-expressive approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record

Measurement of Mood States Following Light Alcohol Consumption: Evidence from the Implicit Association Test

“…Previous studies revealed that the positive emotions increased after the alcohol consumption on the basis of results from self-report procedures [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. In the present study, we examined whether cheerfulness induced by light alcohol consumption could be measured by the objective behavioral task (i.e., IAT).…”

“…Previous studies have measured mood states during and after alcohol consumption by using self-report procedures (e.g., State-Trait Anxiety Inventory [ 2 ] or eight-item mood measure [ 38 ] for negative and positive mood states, such as “sad”, “bored”, “cheerful”, and “happy”) [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. However, self-reports may be contaminated by the conscious alteration of the participants’ responses.…”

“…The results indicated that ratings of happiness increased, whereas ratings of anxiety decreased after alcohol consumption relative to the before-consumption baseline. Other studies also found that alcohol consumption enhanced positive mood states, as measured by a questionnaire and increased enjoyment-smiling in a social setting [ 8 , 9 ].…”

“…The participants took part in three sessions, each of which began with a baseline IAT followed by the consumption of an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage (at 0%, 1%, or 3% concentration), and three subsequent IATs (at 0, 30, and 60 min after the time of consumption). Previous studies found that positive emotions increased after alcohol consumption relative to the before-consumption or the control conditions [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Thus, we hypothesized that if the IAT is sufficiently sensitive to detect resulting mood changes, the IAT scores reflecting a cheerful mood should be higher under the alcohol consumption conditions (1% and 3% concentration) than under the non-alcohol control condition (0% concentration).…”

The Facial Action Coding System for Characterization of Human Affective Response to Consumer Product-Based Stimuli: A Systematic Review

“…Grafsgaard et al (2011), Grafsgaard et al (2013), Grafsgaard et al (2014) used either manual or automatic FACS coding to determine students' affective responses, while being tutored through an online program, because affective states often influence progress on learning tasks, resulting in positive or negative cycles of affect that impact learning outcomes (Woolf et al, 2009;Baker et al, 2010;D'Mello and Graesser, 2014). Participants of studies conducted by Sayette and Hufford (1995), Sayette and Parrott (1999), Sayette et al (2001), Sayette et al (2019), Griffin and Sayette (2008) and Sayers and Sayette (2013) underwent smoking cue exposure with cigarette and rolled-paper stimuli to better understand the relationship between affect and human behaviors including craving and urge. Children's facial expressions of affect were also manually coded in response to physical games to better understand human psychological development (Unzner and Schneider, 1990;Schneider and Josephs, 1991).…”