You’re probably just as trashy as everyone else when you’re drunk, psychologists say

By Sam Downing|

Think you're the sensible one when you go out drinking with friends? Think again.

Ever woken up after a big night and thought, “I was pretty drunk last night — but at least I wasn’t as trashy as my friends”? Well, bad news: you probably were.

Research presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference suggests young drinkers believe they’re better behaved and more in control than their friends. Which, while it’s true for some people, can’t be true for everyone.

A team led by Dr Emma Davies, a lecturer in psychology and alcohol studies at Oxford Brookes University, polled more than 400 British university students on their alcohol consumption and how their behaviour while intoxicated measured up to their peers’.

The results showed that pretty much everyone considers themselves a model drunk who remains in control when boozing — especially males (particularly those under 21), who were highly likely to consider their drunken antics to be less unruly than their mates’.

 “This research shows that students consistently view their behaviour whilst drinking in a positive light when compared to that of others,” said Davies in a statement.

“They also suggest that their own drunken behaviour in generally motivated by a desire to have fun but judge others more harshly, as deliberately aggressive or out of control.”

Davies said that future interventions aimed at curbing excessive drinking need to stop focusing solely on the amount of alcohol consumed, and take into account that few people consider themselves to be unruly drunks when they’re having a big night.

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“This research suggests some of the reasons for campus drinking culture and why previous intervention attempts have tended to be unsuccessful,” she said.

While the research focused on students who are relatively new to alcohol, the takeaway for older drinkers (who are more likely to consume alcohol in “risky” quantities) is that you’re probably a lot worse at gauging your behaviour when you’re drunk.

Though you might be more likely to consider your friends more drunk and out of control than you, they have a big influence on how drunk you feel.

In 2016, Welsh researchers suggested that how drunk you perceive yourself to be depends as much on how drunk you perceive your social circle to be, as on how much alcohol you’ve actually downed.

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