Many people have seen a movie in which a drunk character accuses everyone else of being drunk too. But a new study from the United Kingdom suggests that in real life, being surrounded by sober individuals may actually have a, well, sobering effect.
The researchers found that people who were surrounded by other intoxicated individuals were more likely underestimate their own level of drunkenness. But when more sober people were present, drinkers tended to overestimate their own drunkenness, the study found.
In other words, if that drunk person in the movie was actually surrounded by sober people, he or she would be more likely to realize it — and to think of himself as drunker than them. [7 Ways Alcohol Affects your Health]
“Researchers have historically worked under the assumption that those who drink [the] most alcohol incorrectly ‘imagine’ everyone else also drinks to excess,” Simon Moore, a professor of public health research at Cardiff University in Wales and the lead author of the study, said in a statement.
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