So what constructs encompass subjective responses to alcohol? Schuckit and colleagues produced the early seminal work on the assessment of self-reported subjective response to alcohol by measuring self-reported subjective intoxication during alcohol administration sessions (i.e., alcohol challenge) (e.g., Schuckit, 1980). In the context of Schuckit’s work, the primary measure of subjective responses to alcohol is the Subjective High Assessment Scale (SHAS). The SHAS consists of various positive and negative mood-related adjectives, in addition to a single item ad-hoc scale of “feeling high.” Principal components analysis of the SHAS suggested that the “maximum terrible feelings” construct loaded into a first factor and accounted for 46% of the total variance (Schuckit, 1985), thereby suggesting that the SHAS may be most sensitive to the unpleasant effects of alcohol. Perhaps the most compelling evidence that subjective responses to alcohol predict alcohol use and misuse comes from a longitudinal study of sons of alcohol dependent probands and controls, suggesting that individuals who demonstrated low response to alcohol in the laboratory (measured by the SHAS) were significantly more likely to develop alcoholism at 8-year follow-up (Schuckit & Smith, 1996).
