Rose-coloured beer goggles: Why having one more drink seems like such a good idea (despite the hangovers)

When nursing a hangover it's not unusual to vow to never allow alcohol to pass your lips again. Yet weeks - perhaps even days - later social drinkers find themselves in the same situation.

Now scientists think they have found out why so many of us display this counter-productive behaviour.

It turns out that we are far more likely to remember the positive effects of the experience, such as feeling less inhibited, and downplay any next-morning nausea or 'regrettable sexual situations.'

A good idea at the time: Scientists found drinkers tend to exaggerate the benefits of alcohol and downplay negative after effects


To reach their findings, psychologists at the University of Washington asked 500 college students to complete an online survey that measured their drinking habits the previous year.

The survey assessed how often the participants had experienced 35 different negative consequences of drinking, such as blackouts, fights, hangovers, and lost or stolen belongings.

They also reported on 14 positive effects, including better conversational and joke-telling abilities and more energy to stay up late partying.


They found participants rated the upsides to drinking as more positive and likely to happen in the future, a finding the researchers call 'rose-colored beer goggles.'

'It’s as though they think that the good effects of drinking keep getting better and more likely to happen again,' said lead author and graduate Diane Logan.

Co-author and assistant professor Kevin King, added: 'This study suggests why some people can experience a lot of bad consequences of drinking but not change their behaviour.

'People think, "It’s not going to happen to me" or "I’ll never drink that much again." They do not seem to associate their own heavy drinking with negative consequences.'


Those who experienced a small to moderate number of ill effects of drinking did not consider the experiences to be so bad. They also didn't think they were any more likely to experience them again compared with students who had never got that drunk.

The researchers call this cognitive-dissonance reasoning. This leads people the night after to say 'I'll never drink that much again', or 'I threw up once, but that won't happen again.'

Participants were only deterred by the ill effects of drinking when they had high levels of negative consequences.

The findings have implications for alcohol intervention programs for students, which tend to focus on how to avoid the negative consequences of drinking.

'We should take into account how people don’t think of negative consequences as all that bad or likely to happen again,' Logan said.

She added that factoring in how people view alcohol’s positive effects 'might have a bigger impact' on drinking habits.


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