Social facilitation could not have contributed to these results (there was no alcohol offered during rearing), but in a subsequent experiment, adult, normally reared C57BL/6 and DBA/2 mice were housed with mice of the opposite or the same strain from weaning (3 weeks) for 7 weeks (Randall and Lester, 1975b). Here, alcohol and water bottles were available. At 10 weeks, mice were individually housed and preference drinking was measured for one week. Both genotypes showed an effect of post-natal rearing. DBA/2 mice reared throughout adolescence with C57BL/6 adults drank more than those reared with other DBAs, and C57BL/6 mice reared with DBAs drank less than the DBAs reared with DBA cage mates.
