Why do people have the social norm that drinking alcohol is compulsory? I’ve experienced a number of situations where drinking alcohol was a requirement for social interaction, to the point where people were suspicious and untrustworthy of any abstainers. Why does this happen?
Possibly relevant: I am from the northeastern United States.
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned this one, but it’s often inappropriate to hang around with people while not engaging in whatever activity they’re doing. Don’t sit in the stands at a football game reading a book, don’t watch TV while your friends are playing Dungeons and Dragons, don’t have your headphones on while friends are having a conversation.
For many people, alcohol raises talkativeness and lowers inhibition, so you’re more likely to say things you normally wouldn’t (in vino veritas). Sharing private things is a friendship-builder (HPMOR 7), but it can also be embarrassing. Drinking is a pre-commitment to build friendship through potentially embarrassing interactions, and when you abstain, you’re saying, “I’ll hear your secrets, but keep mine, thank you very much,” which is a suspicious and untrustworthy kind of stance.
To the extent the above is true, it’s too bad, because
Some people really don’t like drinking, and alcohol doesn’t make them more sociable anyway
No one should need to self-handicap in this way to trust and be trusted
It’s only a pre-commitment as far as the placebo effect causes you to engage in embarrassing behavior. There are some physical effects of alcohol, but your willingness to break social boundaries while intoxicated seems to depend only on how strongly you believe you are intoxicated.
It may be not the whole effect, although a major part of it. My coworker says that the only time when he consumed noticeable amount of alcohol he was surprised by the thinking becoming more difficult. I can say nothing from personal experience because I cannot tolerate the taste long enough for any effects to manifest themselves.
it’s too bad, because [...] It’s a pre-commitment, limiting your options
Pre-commitment is only necessarily bad in for perfectly rational agents in one-player games without akrasia. In multi-player games (the ones where CDT doesn’t work, e.g. Parfit’s Hitchhiker), or if you have akrasia (which can be described as you acting as a different player than yourself at a different time), pre-commitment does win in certain situations. That’s the whole point of picoeconomics, including pre-commitment devices such as Beeminder.
Plus, alcohol is not such a strong pre-commitment, anyway; it makes you less shy, but if you’re really motivated not to do/say something, then alcohol won’t make you do/say that.[1] If anything, it’s a pre-commitment to not perform activities needing good reaction times and coordination such as driving.
I think this is mostly the impression of moral superiority people get from non-drinkers. If you excuse yourself for medical reasons, or imply you’re a recovering alcoholic, people will mistrust you a lot less.
Agreed about the recovering alcoholism excuse; I’ve occasionally implied that to good effect. Medical reasons is complicated; I’ve had this both succeed and fail depending on particulars. That said, I generally find “No thanks, I’m good” works pretty well.
I’ve heard this excuse suggested before on LW, and it still sits wrong with me. I’d expect it to be fairly disadvantageous to be thought a recovering alcoholic in many situations.
(nods) In many situations it is. Context is everything. Also, indirection matters here. Saying “No, I really don’t drink anymore” while staring at my feet gets the implication across, for example, without saying anything false.
I don’t know, of course, but if my cohort regularly engages in a habit that leaves us at a physical and cognitive disadvantage, it really doesn’t seem too surprising that we will also develop associated habits that prevent others who are not so disadvantaged from engaging with us.
Simple tradition, I expect. In many situations and cultures, consuming alcohol is simply the done thing, and not doing the done thing a surefire way of standing out. I’d also guess that people who drink in these situations expect everyone to know the social norms and agree with them (even if it’s only an unconscious background assumption), and so they’ll see not wanting to drink as wanting to stand out. And you know what that means.
Bonding among humans involves being vulnerable. Shared food gives them the chance to poison you. Comedy allows you to signal to each other which social norms you don’t take seriously. Drinking involves loss of coordination and talkativeness about deep issues one has.
Drinking is a signal of agreeableness and extraversion, which are highly valued status-enhancing traits. Not drinking when the context calls for it signals a lack of compliance with group norms—and does not have a status-enhancing spin to it that can be sold as “cool rebellion.”
Personally one of the reasons I enjoy social drinking is the mutual lowering of barriers. In everyday interaction people are routinely concealing their true feelings and intentions. Consuming alcohol forces them to reveal more of their true feelings and provides a social setting where this is acceptable. I find you trust and understand people better having been drunk with them.
Consequently, someone refusing to drink is implicitly trying to conceal their true feelings to a greater degree, which makes them seem less trustworthy/friendly.
I have found that drunk people aren’t as capable of concealing their true feelings or beliefs as sober people, such that people who are concealing those things to a significant degree are easier to understand when drunk… I agree with that much. But I’ve also found that drunk people aren’t as capable of expressing their feelings or beliefs with any clarity as sober people, such that people whose feelings or beliefs are significantly complex are easier to understand when sober.
I suppose the tradeoff has to do with how much I value knowing the simple feelings/beliefs that my friends are concealing, vs how much I value knowing the complex feelings/beliefs they wish to express.
I’ve swung back and forth on this over the years, depending on who my friends are and what exactly is going on in my life, but in general I’m happiest when I’m focused on the latter.
Why do people have the social norm that drinking alcohol is compulsory? I’ve experienced a number of situations where drinking alcohol was a requirement for social interaction, to the point where people were suspicious and untrustworthy of any abstainers. Why does this happen?
Possibly relevant: I am from the northeastern United States.
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned this one, but it’s often inappropriate to hang around with people while not engaging in whatever activity they’re doing. Don’t sit in the stands at a football game reading a book, don’t watch TV while your friends are playing Dungeons and Dragons, don’t have your headphones on while friends are having a conversation.
For many people, alcohol raises talkativeness and lowers inhibition, so you’re more likely to say things you normally wouldn’t (in vino veritas). Sharing private things is a friendship-builder (HPMOR 7), but it can also be embarrassing. Drinking is a pre-commitment to build friendship through potentially embarrassing interactions, and when you abstain, you’re saying, “I’ll hear your secrets, but keep mine, thank you very much,” which is a suspicious and untrustworthy kind of stance.
To the extent the above is true, it’s too bad, because
Some people really don’t like drinking, and alcohol doesn’t make them more sociable anyway
No one should need to self-handicap in this way to trust and be trusted
It’s a pre-commitment, limiting your options
It’s only a pre-commitment as far as the placebo effect causes you to engage in embarrassing behavior. There are some physical effects of alcohol, but your willingness to break social boundaries while intoxicated seems to depend only on how strongly you believe you are intoxicated.
source on one study: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3035442.stm source seeming to indicate that even the physical effects can be placebo-related: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1403295/
It may be not the whole effect, although a major part of it. My coworker says that the only time when he consumed noticeable amount of alcohol he was surprised by the thinking becoming more difficult. I can say nothing from personal experience because I cannot tolerate the taste long enough for any effects to manifest themselves.
Pre-commitment is only necessarily bad in for perfectly rational agents in one-player games without akrasia. In multi-player games (the ones where CDT doesn’t work, e.g. Parfit’s Hitchhiker), or if you have akrasia (which can be described as you acting as a different player than yourself at a different time), pre-commitment does win in certain situations. That’s the whole point of picoeconomics, including pre-commitment devices such as Beeminder.
Plus, alcohol is not such a strong pre-commitment, anyway; it makes you less shy, but if you’re really motivated not to do/say something, then alcohol won’t make you do/say that.[1] If anything, it’s a pre-commitment to not perform activities needing good reaction times and coordination such as driving.
I think this is mostly the impression of moral superiority people get from non-drinkers. If you excuse yourself for medical reasons, or imply you’re a recovering alcoholic, people will mistrust you a lot less.
Agreed about the recovering alcoholism excuse; I’ve occasionally implied that to good effect.
Medical reasons is complicated; I’ve had this both succeed and fail depending on particulars.
That said, I generally find “No thanks, I’m good” works pretty well.
I’ve heard this excuse suggested before on LW, and it still sits wrong with me. I’d expect it to be fairly disadvantageous to be thought a recovering alcoholic in many situations.
(nods) In many situations it is. Context is everything. Also, indirection matters here. Saying “No, I really don’t drink anymore” while staring at my feet gets the implication across, for example, without saying anything false.
Cool. I suppose it’d make sense in relatively “disposable” social interactions.
I don’t know, of course, but if my cohort regularly engages in a habit that leaves us at a physical and cognitive disadvantage, it really doesn’t seem too surprising that we will also develop associated habits that prevent others who are not so disadvantaged from engaging with us.
Simple tradition, I expect. In many situations and cultures, consuming alcohol is simply the done thing, and not doing the done thing a surefire way of standing out. I’d also guess that people who drink in these situations expect everyone to know the social norms and agree with them (even if it’s only an unconscious background assumption), and so they’ll see not wanting to drink as wanting to stand out. And you know what that means.
Bonding among humans involves being vulnerable. Shared food gives them the chance to poison you. Comedy allows you to signal to each other which social norms you don’t take seriously. Drinking involves loss of coordination and talkativeness about deep issues one has.
Drinking is a signal of agreeableness and extraversion, which are highly valued status-enhancing traits. Not drinking when the context calls for it signals a lack of compliance with group norms—and does not have a status-enhancing spin to it that can be sold as “cool rebellion.”
Personally one of the reasons I enjoy social drinking is the mutual lowering of barriers. In everyday interaction people are routinely concealing their true feelings and intentions. Consuming alcohol forces them to reveal more of their true feelings and provides a social setting where this is acceptable. I find you trust and understand people better having been drunk with them.
Consequently, someone refusing to drink is implicitly trying to conceal their true feelings to a greater degree, which makes them seem less trustworthy/friendly.
This hasn’t been my experience.
I have found that drunk people aren’t as capable of concealing their true feelings or beliefs as sober people, such that people who are concealing those things to a significant degree are easier to understand when drunk… I agree with that much. But I’ve also found that drunk people aren’t as capable of expressing their feelings or beliefs with any clarity as sober people, such that people whose feelings or beliefs are significantly complex are easier to understand when sober.
I suppose the tradeoff has to do with how much I value knowing the simple feelings/beliefs that my friends are concealing, vs how much I value knowing the complex feelings/beliefs they wish to express.
I’ve swung back and forth on this over the years, depending on who my friends are and what exactly is going on in my life, but in general I’m happiest when I’m focused on the latter.