Tutorial 3: make a project protocol prior

Effects of exposure to alcohol free and low alcohol drink cues compared to alcohol cues

look at research background, questions and design

  • 4 experiment arms

  • IV type of cue we’re exposing people to

  • probably like 1 moderator

Moderators (the influencing factor): context of drinking

outcome measurements (tools to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention): craving (alcohol craving questionnaire or desire for alcohol questionnaire)

Baseline measurements (set of data collected before any intervention): Drinking frequency/ NoLo consumption history

Experimental arms (the different groups):

Psy346: Research Project in Psychology

Project Protocol

Project protocols are summaries of a proposed research project, which help you to consider all aspects of and processes involved in a research project, thus enhancing academic rigour. A good protocol provides a solid rationale for the research project, and acts as a guide for how you plan to conduct and analyse your research project. An increasing number of Psychology journals are allowing researchers to register their research protocols before conducting and publishing the research, to encourage better research practice- the 2014 Guardian article by Prof.

 

The word limit for the project protocol is 1200 words (this does not include the reference list at the end). Delete the italicised descriptions of each section (and this preamble) when you have completed them.

 

Students working in group projects should fill in an individual protocol. You can then use your own completed protocol as the basis for writing your dissertation.

Researcher/Research Team Name(s):

Effects of exposure to alcohol free and low alcohol drink cues compared to alcohol cues 

Rationale and background information:

Briefly outline the need/problem that is the basis of the project. For example, is it addressing specific gaps or limitations in the existing literature? Does it address an important ‘real-life’ issue? etc. Cite some relevant literature.

Corfe et al-

  • the idea is to reduce alcoholic consumption/ harms but there is limited evidence for this

  • potential health impacts

    • alcohol-free products consumed as an addition to stronger drinks

    • reduces the rate of drink driving as drivers opt for NoLo products over stronger products

    • future research is needed as data to direct and aid policy makers on consumer behaviour and thus, health outcomes

 Herrmann et al, 2001-

  • exposure to alcohol-related cues in social drinkers lead to

    • an increased urge to drink

    • increased anxiety

    • increased tension

    • changes in several physiological measures

      • heart rate

      • skin-conductance level

      • intense salivation

Walitzer and Sher, 1990

  • limited research has examined reactivity to alcohol cues in social drinkers

Cooney et al, 1987

  • increased reactivity to alcoholic cues relative to control cues on several self-report measures (including increased desire to drink and expectations of pleasant effects)

Mcgreen et al, 2022

  • cravings for non-alcoholic beverages are confirmed

  • preliminary research to support the idea of cravings for some non-alcoholic beverages

Veilleux et al, 2012

  • visual alcohol cues are often used to elicit craving

  • alcoholic beverage cues were associated with greater craving then non-alcoholic beverage cues

  • interaction between drinking experience and cue type in predicting resistance to drinking

  • content of control cues

    • non-alcoholic beverage cues control for the appetite and reward properties of food and drink

    • so far, no direct comparison of non-beverage neutral cues and non-alcoholic beverage cues in terms of how they differentially influence craving

    • empirical support is needed to confirm what theory would suggest that non-alcoholic beverage cues would be a better match for alcohol cues in terms of isolating the craving effect for alcohol

  • inclusion context or brand enhances ecological validity of cue reactivity since most people drink in social settings

  • a between subjects design, 2 (cue condition: alcohol or non-alcoholic beverages) × 2 (question condition: craving/affect or artistry questions i.e. “how memorable is this image?” to assess memorability)

look at camelleria (idk how to spell) in the folder

if you wanted to do context with adverts, you can’t really do a comparison between NoLo and alcohol as you don’t really find alcohol adverts promoting use in the gym or at work

Research question and hypotheses:

What research question is your study trying to answer? What are your hypotheses? Make sure these clearly follow from the research you cited above.

  • does exposure to NoLo drink cues elicit differing levels of alcohol craving compared to exposure to alcoholic drink cues and is this influenced by context?

or

  • does drinking context amplify the craving effect of alcoholic or NoLo cues?

Design and methodology:

Describe your design and methodology briefly, including answers to the following questions.

Design: What are your independent/predictor variables? What are the levels of the IV or are they continuous? Are they manipulated within or between subjects? What sort of controls do you need to employ? What are your dependent/criterion variables?

  • IV: type of cue: alcohol vs NoLo, within subjects

  • DV: cravings, (alcohol craving questionnaire or desire for alcohol questionnaire)

  • moderator: context of drinking

  • if questionnaire uses photos, could use the international affective picture system, that have been validated for eliciting emotions for the use of studies

  • Questionnaire can use imagery tasks

  • Alcohol craving questionnaires (ACQ-NOW, Singleton et al., 1995)

    • 47 items assess the multidimensional aspects of craving for alcohol

    • each item is related to

      • urges and desires to drink alcohol

      • intent to use alcohol

      • anticipation of positive outcome

      • anticipation of relief from withdrawal and negative outcome

      • lack of control over use

  • could use adverts for alcohol and NoLo

    • could do brand Vs non-brand

    • we could measure how familiar they are to control cues

    • could have to measure whether they see no/lo drink as a version of alcoholic drinks or as specific non-alcoholic, soft drinks

      • this could be an outcome measure

  • Penn alcohol craving scale maybe?

  • DAQ: Desires for alcohol questionnaires

    • 14 item version, has been used in non-dependent populations

    • used for craving and drink refusal efficacy, may go over motivational states

  • implicit measures potentially to see if pps subconsciously lean into alcohol or not

Participants: Who are they and how are you recruiting them? Any inclusion/exclusion criteria?

  • AUDIT: hazardous and harmful drinkers but non-dependent

  • drinking frequency of alcoholic drinks and NoLo, could look at characteristics of drinkers for both in Corfe et al to identify what tick box questions to ask

  • eligibility: if we use beer adverts, then we need to ensure participants actually drink beer

  • exclusion criteria: people who are dependent or don’t drink

  • could look at demographic details

  • need 6 groups and 6 different adverts for them, core Vs non-core drinks,

Materials: What specific materials/stimuli are involved in your study? Describe them and/or provide citations for existing stimuli.

Procedure: Briefly describe the procedure of your study.

 

Data management and statistical analysis:

Data coding: How will the data be coded/extracted? For example, is there a scoring protocol for questionnaires? Are you dealing with reaction time data where you will be calculating a mean/median reaction time?

 

Data type: What type of data are each of your variables? (nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio)

cue type- nominal (categorical)

craving- ACQ ordinal

Drinking context- categorical

Planned statistical analysis: Given the type of data above, what statistical tests do you plan to use to analyse your data? What do you need to check to make sure this analysis is suitable? (I.e. what are the assumptions of the analysis?) What transformations or alternative analysis will do you do if the data doesn’t meet those assumptions?

  • don’t need to go into too detail just kind of state what type of analysis it is, ignore SPSS data file

SPSS data file: Give an example of how you should enter your data into SPSS, by adding variable names and example data into the below table, keeping in mind the design of your data (i.e. data from within and between subjects variables is entered in different ways).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethics:

What are the key ethical considerations relating to your study? How do you plan to address these?

 

References: