The role of punishment in the aetiology and continuance of alcohol drinking in rats

This experiment was designed to establish whether rats could be trained to drink alcohol in order to escape from a punishing situation. This was shown to be possible. The next question was to see if the alcohol would provide a ‘psychological’ escape, decreasing the necessity for physical escape from the punishing situation. The effect of alcohol significantly increased the latency to escape. It was further hypothesised that once drinking had become a well-established habit, punishment would lead to increased drinking. This could not be confirmed directly but increasing punishment had the effect of decreasing the time taken to start drinking. A fourth rat was trained by the same escape-avoidance paradigm as the alcohol-drinking rats, but a response different from drinking was established. This was done to demonstrate that other responses can be shaped, using the same paradigm.