Drunk on life

For thousands of years alcohol has been transforming stiff into suave, lame into loose, and occasionally even 2s into 10s. But while its potency as a social lubricant is undisputed, it remains unclear just how much of its effect on us can be attributed to simple social conditioning.

Back in 2003, psychologists at Victoria University conducted a remarkable experiment that effectively demonstrated the expectancies we hold regarding alcohol consumption. Their study consisted of 148 students who were split into two groups, with one group being told that they were being served vodka & tonic and the other group being told that they were being served just tonic water. In reality, all of the participants were being served just plain tonic water, the only difference was that the first group’s glasses were rimmed with limes which had been dunked in vodka. To complete the deception, a bar style ambiance was created with genuine bartenders using branded vodka bottles – even if they were filled with nothing stronger than flat tonic water.

The students were then invited to enjoy their drinks and chat amongst themselves before being shown a sequence of slides depicting a crime scene. These slides were then removed and the students questioned as to what they had just witnessed. Despite being stone cold sober, the group that believed it was under the influence consistently recalled details of the crime scene with less accuracy than the other group. The results suggest that the effects of alcohol are so entrenched in our psyches that even the mere suggestion of alcohol consumption can be enough to affect our faculty for recollection.

Princeton university frat boys also conducted their own less-scientific version of this experiment when they hosted a keg party for unsuspecting freshmen. Despite the keg being filled with non-alcoholic beer a raucous college party still managed to ensue. The cringe worthy footage of their prank can be found here. While these placebo experiments underscore the considerable power of suggestion they also inadvertently double as an explicit endorsement for the advertising industry. As the French writer Gustave Flaubert once sagely noted, “There is no truth. There is only perception.”

He’s absolutely right – just try telling that to the ASA.

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