Â鶹´å

Mixing Lab Rigor with Real Life, Â鶹´å Researchers Craft New Recipe for Groundbreaking Alcohol Studies

Studying drinking in a controlled social environment allows Â鶹´å researchers to mix the rigor of the lab with the authentic social contexts where alcohol use usually occurs

Nearly aged 12 and older have drank alcohol at least once in their lives, and suffers from alcohol use disorder. And yet, scientists still know surprisingly little about how alcohol shapes our social experiences in the moment, such as how we feel, behave and connect with others while drinking, and how this might translate to risk of developing alcohol problems.

But Â鶹´å’s hopes to change all of that by treating a simple vodka-cranberry cocktail as a carefully controlled scientific instrument.

“We only recruit people that find vodka-cranberry palatable, and that feel comfortable drinking three drinks pretty quickly,” said Kasey Creswell, director of graduate studies and an associate professor of psychology at the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “And of course, no one is allowed to drive themselves home from the study.”

These are just a few of the many, many guardrails in place to make sure participants remain safe while providing invaluable data for on alcohol and social behaviors. Participants are also screened for medications that react to alcohol and prior history of any substance use disorder.

“The safety of our participants is the number one priority,” said Creswell, who has received $5.8 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to date.

Those who pass screening are invited to take part in Â鶹´å’s innovative social drinking research. Creswell’s team recently completed the , a first-of-its-kind project that examined how alcohol affects emotions and social interaction in real time in at-risk young adults. They are now recruiting couples for a new study called , which continues this work by observing partners drinking together.

Creswell’s team creates a comfortable, living-room-style environment where drinks are poured in front of participants, and they can relax and interact naturally. It’s a safe, carefully monitored space that allows researchers to study social drinking as it typically occurs, all while maintaining rigorous experimental control.

“Alcohol is the most commonly used drug in the world, but most studies have examined its effects when people drink alone in a lab. That’s not real life,” said Creswell. “Our work is uncovering what actually drives drinking in everyday settings, like at parties and on dates, where alcohol often feels most rewarding.”

Representative time-locked screenshots illustrate a group interaction. All individuals pictured provided informed consent to appear in this figure. To enhance confidentiality and participant protection, identifying features have been blurred.

Creating a Realistic Social Drinking Experiment

In the BAR Study, Creswell wanted to better understand the effects alcohol had on interactions between strangers.

Participants were given Cape Codders — another name for the vodka cranberry cocktail — until they reached a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent, which is when most people feel intoxicated.

“We're really interested in the ascending limb of the blood alcohol concentration curve,” said Creswell, “because that's when alcohol's rewarding effects are most robust.”

The catch? Not everyone received the same amount of alcohol. Researchers carefully controlled the dose each participant consumed so they could measure how different levels of intoxication shaped social experiences.

“Out of hundreds and hundreds of participants, only one has guessed the correct dose,” said Creswell. “We’ve really perfected our strategy, and we’re keeping it a secret.”

Analyzing Every Frame

Once the drinks have been served, participants were placed in groups of three and left alone to interact — or not. 

“When you drink with friends, you’re probably going to have a good time whether you’re drinking or not. But with strangers, it adds that extra little bit of social anxiety. You want to make a good impression,” said Creswell. “That’s when alcohol has a strong effect.”

To quantify what was happening, mounted video cameras on the walls recorded every frame of every facial expression while a microphone in the ceiling captured conversations. This allowed the researchers to conduct deep behavioral coding of each individual.

“We code each person separately, and then we merge the video together,” said Creswell. “That way, we can see if, say, one person talks, do the other two contribute? If one person smiles, does someone else reciprocate that smile?”

In a recent publication in , Creswell and colleagues reported that heavy-drinking young adults who consumed alcohol (versus placebo) experienced stronger positive emotions, greater social bonding and smoother conversation flow in groups of strangers. Alcohol even accelerated the pace of social connection, reducing awkward silences and increasing coordinated conversation as the interaction unfolded.

“Alcohol doesn’t just change how we feel — it changes how we connect. We found that even among strangers, drinking can quickly create a sense of ease and belonging, which may help explain why social drinking is so reinforcing for young adults,” said Creswell.

Alcohol’s Social Pull

For Creswell’s next project, she and her lab have turned their sights to romantic relationships in the DYAD Study.

“Partners often drink together, and their alcohol use patterns are deeply intertwined. For some couples, alcohol enhances closeness. For others, drinking becomes a replacement for emotional connection,” said Creswell.

By recruiting couples rather than strangers, the researchers hope to better understand when alcohol strengthens relationships and when it contributes to long-term harm. They are also introducing another facet — genetics combined with high-resolution behavioral measures of alcohol response during social interactions, something that has never been done at this scale before.

“Not everyone responds to alcohol the same way. For some, drinking triggers a big boost in mood, confidence or connection, and that reward can be a risk factor,” said Creswell. “By adding genetics to our social drinking research, we can detect who is especially sensitive to alcohol’s social ‘pull’ and why.”

What’s more, by identifying couples for whom alcohol becomes the primary source of emotional bonding, Creswell said early intervention may be able to support the relationship while reducing risk for addiction. “It’s a win-win for prevention and for well-being,” she said.

“This is opening the door to more personalized, preventative approaches to reducing alcohol use disorder risk. What makes this work unique is that we are integrating genetics with real-world social drinking behavior, giving us a deeper, more human understanding of how alcohol changes people and relationships,” said Creswell.

Learn more about Kasey Creswell’s research in , a Â鶹´å Faculty Dialogue.