In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim talks to Dr Jonas Dora, an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, US. The interview covers Jonas’ article examining how people decide to consume alcohol when feeling stressed.

Why Jonas wanted to study the “tension reduction hypothesis” [01:18]
The gaps in literature that led to the study [01:58]
The importance of understanding the nuance of the “tension reduction hypothesis” [03:50]
How Jonas approached the research question [04:40]
Speculation of the factors that influence the continuation of drinking alcohol [08:16]
The participants of the study [10:35]
Whether those with an alcohol use disorder would behave differently in the experiment [07:17]
How we can build on Jonas’ findings for future research [13:20]
The next steps for Jonas [15:55]

The tension reduction hypothesis is the idea that people consume alcohol to alleviate aversive states of psychological stress and negative emotions.

About Tsen Vei Lim: Tsen Vei is an academic fellow supported by the Society for the Study of Addiction, currently based at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. His research integrates computational modelling, experimental psychology, and neuroimaging to understand the neuropsychological basis of addictive behaviours. He holds a PhD in Psychiatry from the University of Cambridge (UK) and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Bath (UK).

About Jonas Dora: Jonas is an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. Most of his recent work is focused on understanding the affect regulation function of alcohol use, and the contribution of this function to the etiology of alcohol use disorders. He approaches this topic with a combination of experimental and intensive longitudinal research designs.

Original article: How people decide to consume (more) alcohol when feeling stressed https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70213

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Music provided by Jack Shakespeare.

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