“Oh, he was just drunk” – young adults' views on alcohol as an excuse for violent behaviours

Abstract

Aim This article examines the excuse-value of alcohol in a hypothetical unprovoked male-to-male violence scenario. The excuse-value is conceptualised by two main questions. Does intoxication result in decreased blame? Does intoxication lessen the propensity to call the police? Method In the study, 1004 RDD quantitative telephone surveys were completed with Swedes aged 16–25. The response-rate was 73.8%. The aggressor's intoxication, the victim's intoxication, the severity of the outcome and the aggressor's state of mind were all randomly manipulated. The factors ‘should the police be called’ and the ‘attribution of blame to the aggressor’ have been analysed using factorial ANOVA in SAS. Results Analyses were stratified by sex. For male respondents, the aggressor's intoxication interacted with the victim's intoxication in predicting the attribution of blame. When the victim was drunk, the blame attributed to the aggressor decreased as a result of a higher level of intoxication; whilst there was no effect of the aggressor's intoxication when the victim was only slightly drunk. For female respondents, the aggressor's intoxication interacted with the severity of the outcome. Intoxication decreased the blame with the severe acts but not with the less severe acts. The aggressor's intoxication had no effect on whether the police should be called or not. Conclusions Alcohol intoxication provides some excuse-value for violence, but only for certain acts and under certain circumstances.