Alcohol expectancies are defined as beliefs about the effects of alcohol on behavior. Some research suggests that intoxicated aggression results, in part, from the belief that alcohol increases aggression. It is well known that people vary in their belief that alcohol increases arousal, power, assertiveness, verbal aggression and physical aggression. Significantly, self-report studies indicate that the association between alcohol consumption and aggression is stronger among individuals who expect alcohol to increase aggression. One published study, using the TAP, attempted to determine whether individual differences in alcohol-aggression expectancies would affect aggression under the influence of alcohol in male college students. Results indicated that under conditions of high provocation, intoxicated subjects with high expectancies about the effects of alcohol on aggression were more aggressive than were those with low expectancies.
Pernanen (1976) hypothesized that alcohol consumption increases the probability of an aggressive reaction by reducing the number of available psychological coping mechanisms that rely on conceptual/abstract reasoning. According to this model, alcohol creates a "narrowing of the perceptual field" (p. 415), which reduces the ability to detect both internal and external cues that may provide crucial information about another person's intentions in a precarious situation. Consequently, a reduction in these cues will result in a random or an arbitrary interpretation of the other person's intentions. Accordingly, when intoxicated, it is this tendency to interpret incoming information as random or arbitrary (especially if the incoming information is aggressive in nature) that will increase the probability of a violent response.
Taylor and Leonard (1983) postulated that aggressive behavior is determined by the relative balance of a combination of both instigative (e.g., threats, insults) and inhibitory (e.g., anxiety, norms of reciprocity) cues present in hostile interpersonal situations. Instigative cues increase the probability of an aggressive encounter, whereas inhibitory cues decrease that probability.................
