Alcohol and Implicit Process in Sexual Risk Behavior in MSM
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2020-06-30
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
The current study is the first empirical investigation that directly addresses the
correspondence between responses regarding indicators of risky sexual behavior while under
the influence of alcohol in the laboratory and the occurrence of sexually risky behavior
while under the influence of alcohol in the natural environment, by use of Ecological
Sampling Methodology (ESM). The study will allow us to compare and contrast implicit and
explicit assessments of sexual risk in respect to future behavior in the natural environment.
The data obtained will thus provide new information regarding the external validity of
alcohol administration studies of sexual risk behavior and will provide information to
optimize the selection of dependent measures. The current study also represents the first
attempt to test a causal model linking alcohol intoxication and risky sexual behavior as a
function of both automatic, reflexive, approach tendencies and effortful, deliberative,
self-control (operationalized by executive working memory in this application). The ESM study
will augment the findings of the experiment by providing a detailed assessment of contextual
factors that affect sexual risk behavior as well as replicating and extending the findings of
the experiment to sexual risk situations in the natural environment. Finally, to our
knowledge there has been only one experimental study of alcohol and sexual risk in MSM
(Maisto, Palfai, Vanable, Heath, & Woolf-King, 2012), which is remarkable given that MSM have
been identified as the population at highest risk to contract the HIV in the U.S. since the
virus was identified in the early 1980s. Thus the proposed research is only the second
attempt to add to an understanding of the connections among alcohol, cognitive processes, and
sexual risk behaviors in MSM.
Phase:
Phase 1
Details
Lead Sponsor:
Syracuse University
Collaborators:
Boston University National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) University of South Dakota