ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Alcohol narrows physical distance between strangers.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- How people decide to consume (more) alcohol when feeling stressed.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Trial
- 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
- A social cascades model of addiction: Examining effects of psychological interventions on social and substance use outcomes via meta-analytic review.Psychological bulletin · 2026Article
- Effects of alcohol on emotion recognition: An alcohol-administration trial.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2026Article
- Applying Artificial Intelligence to Expand the Measurement Tool Kit in Clinical-Psychological Science: Moving Beyond Self-Reports.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2026Article
- Objective Assessment in Clinical Psychological Science: Progress in Wearable Alcohol Biosensors.Annual review of clinical psychology · 2026Review
- Longitudinal predictors of alcohol use and problems during the COVID-19 pandemic in an at-risk veteran sample.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Observational
- Social Influence and Problematic Drinking: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025Article
- Social Drinking and Addiction: A Social-Cognitive Model for Understanding Alcohol Use Disorder Risk.Current directions in psychological science · 2025Article
- The impact of alcohol intoxication on extended vigilance and rest-break recovery.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2025Article
- Nightlife and low immunity drove transmission of SARS-CoV-2 gamma in Luxembourg, 2021.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The impact of alcohol on affiliative verbal behavior: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Review
- Alcohol policy framing in South Africa during the early stages of COVID-19: using extraordinary times to make an argument for a new normal.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Where to Look? Alcohol, Affect, and Gaze Behavior During a Virtual Social Interaction.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2023Article
- A social contextual review of the effects of alcohol on emotion.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2022Article
- To what extent is alcohol consumption in social gatherings associated with observance of COVID-19 restrictions? A rapid review.Journal of global health · 2022Review
- Relationship between high-risk alcohol consumption and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) seroconversion: a prospective sero-epidemiological cohort study among American college students.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Relationship Between Anxiety, Depression, and Susceptibility to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection: Proof of Concept.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2022Article
- Increased transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Denmark during UEFA European championships.Epidemiology and infection · 2022Article
- Spatial-temporal differences of COVID-19 vaccinations in the U.S.Urban informatics · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Pandemic management is likely to represent a global reality for years to come, but the roadmap for how to approach pandemic restrictions is as yet unclear. Of the restrictions enacted during COVID-19, among the more controversial surround alcohol. Like many infectious diseases, the principal mode of transmission for COVID-19 is direct respiration of droplets emitted during close social contact, and health officials warn that alcohol consumption may lead to decreased adherence to physical distancing guidelines. Governing bodies have acted to close bars before restaurants and have also specifically restricted alcohol sales, while at the same time those in the nightlife industry have labeled such actions unfounded and discriminatory. Complicating such debates is the lack of evidence on alcohol's effects on physical distance. In the current study we employed a randomized alcohol-administration design paired with computer-vision measures, analyzing over 20,000 proximity readings derived from video to examine the effect of alcohol consumption on physical distance during social interaction. Results indicated that alcohol caused individuals to draw significantly closer to an unfamiliar interaction partner during social exchange, reducing physical proximity at a rate with potentially important implications for public health. In contrast, alcohol had no effect on physical distance with a familiar interaction partner. Findings suggest that alcohol might act to overcome a natural caution people feel towards strangers and thus promote virus transmission between previously unconnected social groups.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.