Alcohol and Self-Evaluation: Is a Social Cognition Approach Beneficial?

Abstract

Based on psychosocial models, a view of alcohol use and addiction as resulting from a habitual maladaptive means of coping with stress has recently emerged. In this article, we present some critical experiments documenting the effects of alcohol on stress, self-awareness, and self-evaluation as exemplars of a social cognition approach to the study of alcohol and stress. We assert that a social cognition approach is a valuable theoretical framework and document the benefits for investigations of alcohol's impact on social, psychological, and health-related behaviors.