Date of Award

6-12-2006

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Nancy Vogeltanz-Holm

Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated a correlation between alcohol abuse and child abuse or neglect, but few have examined whether alcohol consumption itself contributes to poor parenting. The present study investigated the effects of a medium-large dose of alcohol on women's responses to child misbehavior. The participants were 80 medically and psychologically healthy women who were randomly assigned to one of four beverage conditions in a balanced placebo design. Those in an alcohol condition received a moderately high dose, defined as 2 ml of 80-proof vodka per kg of body weight. After consuming their beverages, the women were presented with video scenes and slides depicting noncompliant, dangerous, and non-dangerous child misbehavior. The analyses suggested that alcohol consumption and expectancies lowered their Willingness to ignore noncompliant and non-dangerous misbehavior. For dangerous and non-dangerous misbehavior, the women who consumed alcohol showed diminished Willingness to apply timeout or removal of a privilege. Relative to women who drank non-alcoholic beverages, those who consumed alcohol had dampened subjective and psychophysiological arousal while viewing misbehavior, as measured by ratings of positive arousal, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as skin conductance reactivity and total volume. Also, the women who consumed or expected alcohol rated dangerous child behavior as being more "fine" and "sloppy," noncompliant and non-dangerous misbehavior as being more "accidental," and non-dangerous misbehavior as being more "mischievous." The findings suggest that alcohol consumption may lead to less effective management of child misbehavior. Another implication is that women's degree of arousal and perceptions of child misbehavior might underlie the relationship between alcohol consumption and their discipline choices. These issues need to be explored more in future research.

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