Alcohol does not alter personality, say scientists as they debunk myth of ‘happy drunk’

Source: The Telegraph

Sarah Knapton, science editor

15 MAY 2017

There is no such thing a ‘happy drunk’ scientists have concluded after finding that alcohol does not radically change personality.

Although many people blame drinking for alterations in their usual behaviour, new research shows that there is little shift in character between sober and squiffy.

In fact, the only change is that people become more extroverted. But it is simply a louder version of their usual personality.

“We were surprised to find such a discrepancy between drinkers’ perceptions of their own alcohol-induced personalities and how observers perceived them,” says psychological scientist Dr Rachel Winograd of the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

“Participants reported experiencing differences in all factors of personality, but extraversion was the only factor robustly perceived to be different across participants in alcohol and sober conditions.”

The idea that we transform into different people when we’re under the influence is a popular one, so much so that the differences in an individual’s behaviour when drunk even informs clinical determinations about whether someone has a drinking problem.

To find out if personality really did change when drinking the scientists recruited 156 participants, who completed an initial survey gauging their typical alcohol consumption and their perceptions of their own ‘typical sober’ and ‘typical drunk’ personality.

They then visited a lab with groups of friends and given vodka and lemonade cocktails to drink, while being asked to take part in group activities, such as discussion questions and puzzles to bring out certain personality traits.

After drinking, participants reported lower levels of conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness, and they reported higher levels of extraversion and emotional stability.

However the observers only noticed chances in extraversion.

“We believe both the participants and raters were both accurate and inaccurate – the raters reliably reported what was visible to them and the participants experienced internal changes that were real to them but imperceptible to observers,” added Dr Winograd.

“Of course, we also would love to see these findings replicated outside of the lab – in bars, at parties, and in homes where people actually do their drinking,”

“Most importantly, we need to see how this work is most relevant in the clinical realm and can be effectively included in interventions to help reduce any negative impact of alcohol on peoples’ lives.”

The research was published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.