Previous research found that women tend to use moderate descriptions for their level of intoxication, while men use much heavier terms. A new study has confirmed that the heavy terms used by men are indicative of excessive consumption while the more moderate terms used by women are indicative of moderate drinking. Intoxication labels could impact both perception and behavior, but at the same time help develop tailored measures for prevention and intervention.

An understanding of how people describe their levels of intoxication can provide critical information about the subjective perceptions in intoxication, especially among specific groups like college students. This new study has expanded on previous research by looking at ways in which college students use intoxication labels when presented with characters in hypothetical situations. The ways in which each gender perceives and communicates intoxication could be useful for creating unique methods for prevention and intervention.

“Drinkers use a complex set of physical and cognitive indicators to estimate intoxication,” says Ash Levitt, a researcher at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo, SUNY.  “In order to quickly and easily communicate various levels of intoxication, drinkers distill these indicators down into distinct sets of natural language terms for intoxication, such as ‘tipsy’ or ‘wasted.’ Understanding this language is important as these terms reflect levels of intoxication as well as whether individuals are accurately estimating intoxication levels when they use these terms.”

As part of a larger online study, Levitt and his colleagues had 145 undergraduate students from a large Midwestern university participate in a study during the Spring 2007 semester in exchange for partial course credit. Study participants were randomly assigned to read one of eight different vignette conditions in the survey. Participants were divided into survey groups of about 16 to 19 per group with gender being about equal in each one.

“The current study showed that natural language intoxication terms are applied to others similarly to oneself,” said Levitt. “Specifically, results supported previous research by showing that moderate intoxication terms such as ‘tipsy’ were applied to female vignette characters more than male characters, even when female characters were heavily intoxicated, and that female participants applied these terms more than male participants. In contrast, heavy intoxication terms such as ‘wasted’ were applied to male vignette characters more than female characters, and male participants applied these terms more than female participants.”

“One potential real-world implication that this research suggests is that women may be at increased risk for alcohol-related consequences such as drunk driving if they or their friends underestimate how intoxicated they are by using moderate terms like ‘tipsy’ to describe them when, in fact, they are heavily intoxicated and heavy terms would be more accurate,” added Levitt.

The results of this new study will be published in the December 2013 edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. They can currently be viewed at Early View.