ArticlePsychopharmacology2019
Alcohol, empathy, and morality: acute effects of alcohol consumption on affective empathy and moral decision-making.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Empathic Accuracy and Behavioral Empathy After a Moderate Dose of Beer.Human psychopharmacology · 2026Trial
- Shared effects of the opioid antagonist naltrexone on first-hand and empathic pain.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Trial
- Alcohol's acute effects on emotion recognition and empathy in heavy-drinking young adults.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Alcohol and common ground: The effects of intoxication on linguistic markers of shared understanding during social exchange.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2024Trial
- Alcohol and morality: one alcoholic drink is enough to make people declare to harm others and behave impurely.Psychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- Acute effects of alcohol on social and personal decision making.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Trial
- Alcohol unleashes homo economicus by inhibiting cooperation.PloS one · 2021Trial
- Drink and be merry? The impact of intoxication and affective social cues on social drinkers' emotional responses.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2025Article
- Moral dilemmas in virtual reality: a narrative review of findings and methodological challenges.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Predictors of Alcohol Use Among Latinx Men in South Florida: Machismo as a Correlate of Alcohol Use Frequency and Quantity.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2023Article
- Understanding ethanol's acute effects on medial prefrontal cortex neural activity using state-space approaches.Neuropharmacology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
rationaleHypothetical moral dilemmas, pitting characteristically utilitarian and non-utilitarian outcomes against each other, have played a central role in investigations of moral decision-making. Preferences for utilitarian over non-utilitarian responses have been explained by two contrasting hypotheses; one implicating increased deliberative reasoning, and the other implicating diminished harm aversion. In recent field experiments, these hypotheses have been investigated using alcohol intoxication to impair both social and cognitive functioning. These studies have found increased utilitarian responding, arguably as a result of alcohol impairing affective empathy.
objectivesThe present research expands existing investigations by examining the acute effects of alcohol on affective empathy and subsequent moral judgments in traditional vignettes and moral actions in virtual reality, as well as physiological responses in moral dilemmas.
methodsParticipants (N = 48) were administered either a placebo or alcohol in one of two dosages; low or moderate. Both pre- and post intervention, participants completed a moral action and moral judgment task alongside behavioural measures of affective empathy.
resultsHigher dosages of alcohol consumption resulted in inappropriate empathic responses to facial displays of emotion, mirroring responses of individuals high in trait psychopathy, but empathy for pain was unaffected. Whilst affective empathy was influenced by alcohol consumption in a facial responding task, both moral judgments and moral actions were unaffected.
conclusionsThese results suggest that facets, beyond or in addition to deficits in affective empathy, might influence the relationship between alcohol consumption and utilitarian endorsements.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.