On Campus

Want to get paid to drink?

It’s all in the name of research

Photo courtesy of Kirti Poddar on Flickr

Students at Arizona State University are getting paid to drink — $60 per night.

Will Corbin, an Arizona State University professor researches the effects of alcohol by getting students drunk. “‘The biggest thing I get is, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he told azcentral.com. “You have a bar, and you give people alcohol as part of your research.’

That’s right. He has a bar in the psychology building where carefully screened students are plied with cocktails by research assistants each night at 5 p.m. They’re given three drinks in the first half hour. Then they’re put through a battery of tests related to memory or potentially risky behviour.

After they’ve sobered up, they’re allowed to leave. That typically happens around 9 p.m. — early enough to make it to a real bar.

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