Motivated Attention: Effects of Alcohol Advertising on Youth Drinking

描述（由申请人提供）：最近的数据表明，2001-2009年间，美国青少年接触电视酒精广告的人数增加了71% （CAMY, 2010）。虽然研究表明接触酒精广告与青少年饮酒之间存在关联（Anderson et al., 2009），但这种关系的因果影响尚未确定。本研究旨在探讨酒精广告和营销对青少年酒精相关态度和行为影响的潜在因果机制。这里提出的首要假设是，酒精广告和营销努力影响了基本的动机和注意力过程，这些过程与接近和完善行为以及相关态度有已知的联系。我们提出，通过这些基本过程的变化，通过广告和营销接触到酒精线索，形成了与酒精相关的态度，迫使人们寻求和使用酒精，并可能更普遍地影响冒险行为的倾向。这一普遍假设将在三组实验中使用行为和心理生理学相结合的方法进行调查。所有拟议的实验都将集中在18-20岁的大学在校生身上。实验将集中在一种常见的酒类营销策略上，这种策略可能对大学生特别有效，即建立一个品牌社区，通过产品展示和在大学体育广播中植入广告，将酒类品牌与学生所在的大学联系起来。该策略利用群体内隶属动机，可以增强酒精品牌的激励意义，导致更强的接近性和完善性行为以及酒精相关态度。实验集A将测试与群体相关的酒精产品（与非群体相关的酒精产品）对动机的影响程度

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent data indicate that exposure to televised alcohol advertising among U.S. adolescents increased 71% from 2001-2009 (CAMY, 2010). Although research suggests an association between exposure to alcohol advertising and youth drinking (Anderson et al., 2009), causal effects for such relations have yet to be identified. The proposed work aims to investigate a potential causal mechanism for the effects of alcohol advertising and marketing on adolescents' alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors. The over-arching hypothesis advanced here is that alcohol advertising and marketing efforts affect basic motivational and attentional processes with known links to approach and consummatory behavior and related attitudes. We propose that, through changes in these basic processes, exposure to alcohol cues through advertising and marketing shapes alcohol-related attitudes and compels alcohol-seeking and use, and could influence the propensity for risk-taking behavior more generally. This general hypothesis will be investigated using a combined behavioral and psychophysiological approach in three sets of experiments. All proposed experiments will focus on university-enrolled adolescents aged 18-20. Experiments will focus on a common alcohol marketing strategy that might be particularly effective at targeting college students, known as developing a brand community, by affiliating the brand of alcohol with students' university through product displays and placement of ads in university sports broadcasts. This strategy taps into an in-group affiliation motive that could enhance the motivational significance of alcohol brands, resulting in stronger approach and consummatory behavior and alcohol-related attitudes. Experiment Set A will test the extent to which in-group-affiliated alcohol products (vs. nonaffiliated alcohol products) differentially engage motivational and attentional processes in the brain. Experiment Set B will extend the paradigm to a more naturalistic setting in which video ads is embedded in televised programming manipulated to represent in-group or neutral affiliations. Experiment Set C will investigate the consequences of alcohol video advertisement-induced changes in attention and motivational processes for risk-taking behavior.