Imitation Patterns with Drinking Alcohol

Because drinking alcohol is so often associated as a social behavior, it has been studied to see how people drinking are affected by those drinking around them. Do they match drinking sip for sip, or more generally, drink for drink, choosing alcohol only when others do and non-alcohol if the group seems to approve it?

Previous studies have looked at the nature of imitation drinking, but a recent study specifically looked at imitation drinking both related to alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages. At the Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands, Larsen, Engels, Souren, Granic and Overbeek examined the imitation of alcohol consumption, and compared it with the imitation of non-alcoholic consumption.

The researchers proposed that there would be an increased level of imitation by sip when both participant and confederates were served an alcoholic beverage.

The researchers recruited 70 women and 65 men from the university campus who were an average age of 21 years. The drinking sessions took place in a bar laboratory at the university, where ten confederates were employed as drinking companions for the participants.

The confederates were trained to behave in a socially neutral way and take part in conversation with the participant. The participants and confederates were offered both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, with the confederates instructed on which type of drink to consume.

The results of the study indicate a strong correlation between the sips of the confederate and the sips of the participant. The participants were not as likely to imitate a sip of the confederate when confederates were drinking alcohol and participants were drinking a non-alcoholic beverage. The participants were much more likely to imitate a sip when both the participant and the confederate were consuming alcohol.

This study is the first to investigate whether drink content has bearing on the outcome of drinking imitation. The study showed that men were more likely than women to imitate the sips of a same-sex confederate than women.

Participants imitated sips approximately 7 percent more when both the participant and the confederate were consuming alcohol compared to when only confederates were sipping alcohol.

One limitation of the study is that confederates were not instructed as to how many sips to take during each session. So, although the study provided a very natural environment that can be easily generalized, it cannot be determined to what degree the confederates may also have been imitating the sips of the participants.

The study’s findings are important for the planning of education and intervention for alcohol use disorders, in addition to education for safety in social drinking environments. Understanding the social nuances of drinking alcohol can help individuals make good choices about consuming alcohol.