PS285 Chapter Notes -Homicide, Meta-Analysis, Operant Conditioning
Document Summary
The blessing and curse of alcohol: past and present attitudes. Modern views on alcohol as a social problem can be traced back to the eighteenth century when distilled spirits became available for the first time in europe. Hogarth"s prints of beer street and gin lane illustrate the prevailing view by contrasting the pleasant and supposedly harmless effect of drinking beer with the dire consequences of drinking spirits. Beer street: general sense of industriousness and well-beings. Gin lane: depiction of emaciation, death and neglect of children. Since the early 19th century popular beliefs about the dangers of alcohol have been shaped by organizations known as temperance societies. Helped to establish medical opinion that alcoholics can never return to moderate drinking but can only be cured by remaining abstinent for the rest of their lives. Predominant view is that alcohol is all right in moderation but harmful in excess.
