Psychological experimentation on alcohol-induced human aggression

This paper provides an overview of recent research on alcohol and aggression. We examine major experimental laboratory paradigms used in research on the social factors and psychological processes that elicit aggression among healthy persons under conditions of acute alcohol intoxication and sobriety. Issues concerning the validity of such experimental research in relation to violence in everyday life are discussed along with empirical evidence that attests to the importance of experimentation for an understanding of alcohol-induced violence. The theoretical roles of provocation and frustration as cues that elicit alcohol-induced aggression are also considered. We conclude with a presentation of a newly developed experimental laboratory procedure that can reliably produce disjunctively escalated aggressive responding — the triggered displaced aggression paradigm (TDAP) — and discuss its potential for revealing more about the mechanisms involved in alcohol-induced aggression.