Dr. Oz Says Drinking Is a ‘Social Lubricant.’ Some Experts Worry About That.

The psychologist first became intrigued by the phenomenon decades ago, while he was setting up an experiment about the effects of drinking on anxiety and heart rate.

Women had been excluded from many such studies, so Michael Sayette, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, asked five female volunteers to come into the lab and drink, allowing him to set blood alcohol benchmarks for his experiment.

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“Dr. Oz is right — it is really about talking and smiling and connecting,” said Kasey G. Creswell, an associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “This is why alcohol probably becomes so addictive for some people.”

“They’re not just craving the drink; they’re craving this rapid sense of belonging that is so important to humans at a fundamental level,” she added. “And alcohol can certainly help with that.”

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Julia Buckner, a professor of psychology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La., has studied what motivates “pre-gaming,” or “pre-partying” — the drinking that occurs before a main event.

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