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Biomedical subjects

V J Adesso

Publications and source records attributed to V J Adesso.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Gender differences in using alcohol to cope with depression.

To examine gender differences in alcohol consumption as a function of mood and expectancies, 32 nondepressed and 32 moderately depressed male and female social drinkers were compared during a 15-minute taste-rating session. Results indicated that depressed subjects tended to consume more alcohol than nondepressed subjects and men consumed more alcohol than women. Depressed men drank more and drank more per sip than all other subjects. Three depressed men consumed more than all other subjects. Depression and anxiety decreased over time for all subjects. However, a Sex x Depression x Time interaction showed that only depressed men and nondepressed women were substantially less depressed after drinking. The nondepressed women, compared to the depressed men, consumed less alcohol and reported a greater increase in positive mood. Men expected more global positive effects from drinking than women, suggesting the tension reduction hypothesis (TRH) is mediated by gender-specific expectancies.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

The acute effects of alcohol on the blood pressure of young, normotensive men.

Alcohol's acute effects on arterial blood pressure (BP) were examined. To separate the effects of alcohol on BP from those of fluid volume and expectancy, normotensive men were divided into three groups. The alcohol group received 1.0 ml of absolute alcohol/kg of body weight. The expectancy group expected alcohol but received only tonic. The control group expected and received only tonic. With age as a covariate, significant changes in systolic BP were found only in the alcohol group, indicating that the changes in systolic BP were not attributable to subject expectancy or volume of fluid consumed. The expectancy control groups did not differ from each other. A significant quadratic trend was found for systolic BP in the alcohol group, suggesting that alcohol may have an acute biphasic effect on systolic BP, with an initial decrease as the alcohol is ingested followed by an increase toward the basal level during detoxication. No significant effects were found for diastolic BP.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Incidental orienting tasks and the recall performance of acutely intoxicated subjects.

An incidental-learning paradigm employing a semantic and phonetic orienting task was used to determine whether poor recall performance by intoxicated subjects is due to a storage deficit resulting from a superficial analysis of the presented materials. Forty-eight male, heavy social drinkers served as subjects. Both recall and latency measures closely replicated past research using similar orienting tasks. Intoxicated subjects did not differ significantly from sober subjects in the speed or accuracy with which they answered the orienting questions. Despite the apparent similarity in processing, intoxicated subjects consistently recalled fewer words. It was tentatively suggested that alcohol-induced retention deficits may be due to a reduction in breadth rather than depth of processing.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Effects of alcohol on the storage and retrieval processes of heavy social drinkers.

Two experiments investigated the effects of intoxication, expectation of intoxication, and state dependency on learning and relearning in male heavy social drinkers. In both studies, subjects participated in two daily sessions. On Day 1, intoxicated and sober subjects were presented with word lists for immediate free recall, followed by total free recall of all words. On Day 2, with or without a change in drug state, subjects were given a second total recall test, the same lists for immediate recall, and a third total recall test. In Experiment 1, 10 subjects served in each of four groups formed by crossing expectation with reception of alcohol on Day 1; all subjects were sober on Day 2. In Experiment 2, 12 subjects served in each of four groups formed by crossing drug state on Day 1 with drug state on Day 2 (sober-sober, sober-intoxicated, intoxicated-intoxicated, intoxicated-sober), and all expected alcohol. In both studies, intoxication produced a performance deficit, but retention loss on Day 2 was the same for change- and constant-state subjects. Expectation had no effect on performance. Results are discussed in terms of an alcohol-induced storage deficiency rather than a retrieval deficit.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mood effects of alcohol and expectancies across the menstrual cycle.

To examine menstrual cycle phase variations in alcohol absorption and mood before and after drinking alcohol, 96 volunteers female heavy drinkers, unaware they were in a menstrual cycle study, were randomly assigned to 12 equal-sized groups with controls for the effects of alcohol, expectancy, and menstrual cycle phase. Alcohol subjects received sufficient alcohol to raise their blood alcohol level to .07 mg %. Mood, assessed with the Profile of Mood States, did not differ across menstrual cycle phases at baseline, failing to support the notion of menstrual phase-related moods. The only mood changes were a Beverage by Trials interaction on the Vigor and Confusion scales and a main effect for trials on the Tension-Anxiety and Vigor scales. Peak intoxication level did not differ across phases. The present findings of an absence of menstrual cycle phase-related differences in mood or alcohol absorption support social learning theory and suggest that phasic variations in mood are socially learned. They also suggest the need for systematic study of methodologic factors in this research area.

Absorption↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Alcohol expectancies: effects of gender, age, and family history of alcoholism.

To explore the effects of gender, age, and positive (FH+) and negative (FH-) family history of alcoholism on alcohol-related expectancies, the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (AEQ) was administered to 627 college students (female n = 430). In an attempt to control for consumption effects, only individuals who described themselves as heavy drinkers were included in the study. A 2 (Family History) x 2 (Gender) x 2 (Age Range) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted on the six scales of the AEQ. Results indicated that FH+ females under the age of 20 years reported stronger expectancies of social and physical pleasure than did FH- females. Results also suggested that females over the age of 20 reported significantly lower expectancies of global, positive effects compared to all other subjects, regardless of family history of alcoholism. Finally, both male and female subjects under the age of 20 reported greater expectancies of global, positive effects, sexual enhancement, feelings of increased power and aggression, and social assertion compared to individuals over the age of 20. These results indicate that alcohol-related expectancies vary as a function of age, gender, and family history of alcoholism.

Adolescent↗