University-Affiliated Alcohol Marketing Enhances the Incentive Salience of Alcohol Cues.

ABSTRACT: We tested whether affiliating beer brands with universities enhances the incentive salience of those brands for underage drinkers. In Study 1, 128 undergraduates viewed beer cues while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Results showed that beer cues paired with in-group backgrounds (logos for students' universities) evoked an enhanced P3 ERP component, a neural index of incentive salience. This effect varied according to students' levels of identification with their university, and the amplitude of the P3 response prospectively predicted alcohol use over 1 month. In Study 2 ( N = 104), we used a naturalistic advertisement exposure to experimentally create in-group brand associations and found that this manipulation caused an increase in the incentive salience of the beer brand.

SUBMITTER: Bartholow BD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5771860 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature