Married adults have consistently been found to drink less than their single or divorced counterparts. This correlation may not be causal, however, as people nonrandomly "select" into marriage and into alcohol use. The current study uses a sample of 2,425 same-sex twin pairs (1,703 MZ; 722 DZ) to control for genetic and shared environmental selection, thereby eliminating a great many third variable, alternative explanations to the hypothesis that marriage causes less drinking. Married twins were compared with their single, divorced, and cohabiting cotwins on drinking frequency and quantity. Married cotwins consumed fewer alcoholic beverages than their single or divorced cotwins, and drank less frequently than their single cotwins. Alcohol use patterns did not differ among married and cohabiting twins. These findings provide strong evidence that intimate relationships cause a decline in alcohol consumption. (PsycINFO Database Record
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 120. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 September 2026.
All research outputs
#440,429
of 34,404,538 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Family Psychology
#67
of 2,041 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#6,390
of 337,875 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Family Psychology
#2
of 23 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,404,538 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,041 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.1. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 337,875 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 23 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
