Individual Differences in Resilience to Alcohol Advertising: Two Processing Biases During Advert Viewing Predict Inter-individual Variation in Post-viewing Craving and Consumption

Objective: Despite potentially harmful consequences, people routinely encounter alcohol adverts designed to increase consumption of alcohol in preference to safer alternatives. However, individuals differ in the degree to which such adverts elicit preferential alcohol consumption. The present study builds upon and extends prior research, by testing hypotheses concerning the impact of biased processing during advert viewing on subsequent alcohol craving and consumption. Method: Sixty-nine undergraduate students viewed beer and soft drink adverts. In some viewing blocks, beer and soft drink adverts played simultaneously, and a dual probe approach indexed participants’ attentional bias to beer adverts. In others, participants chose which type of advert to view, which indexed bias in volitional viewing choice. Participants subsequently rated their craving for beer before completing a taste test designed to yield a behavioural measure of preferential beer consumption. Results: Attentional bias to alcohol adverts predicted beer craving and preferential beer consumption. The association between attentional bias and preferential beer consumption was mediated by beer craving. An equivalent pattern of prediction was observed when using the volitional viewing choice bias measure as the predictor. Importantly, when variation in either bias measure was statistically controlled for, the other continued to predict preferential beer consumption, in a manner that was mediated by beer craving. Conclusions: Two different types of processing bias that operate during advert viewing, respectively reflecting volitional viewing preference for, and involuntary attentional capture by, alcohol adverts, independently moderate subsequent preferential alcohol consumption, through alcohol craving. The theoretical and applied implications of this are discussed.