The effects of a brief meaning in life intervention on the incentive salience of alcohol

There is an increasing body of evidence that life meaning is inversely related to alcohol consumption. Much of this research is cross-sectional and few studies have examined mechanisms for the inverse relation. The current study investigated whether a brief meaning intervention would lead to reduced incentive salience of alcohol. Seventy undergraduate students who reported regular alcohol consumption were assigned either to control or a meaning condition, which involved thinking about and committing to pursue intrinsically valued goals. The incentive salience of alcohol was operationalized as the extent to which alcohol cues interfered with the correct completion of an alcohol Stroop task. The results indicated that the meaning intervention led to reduced incentive salience as measured by alcohol Stroop errors, but not incentive salience as measured by reaction time. The findings suggest that incentive salience may be one mechanism through which individuals with greater life meaning regulate their drinking behavior.