In classical criminology, human behavior is viewed as a choice made after calculating the response that will afford the highest pleasure/pain ratio. In the tradition of this rational-choice perspective, researchers have invoked an expected utility model in order to understand the occurrence of criminal activity in terms of its probabilistic costs and benefits to the offender. Most contemporary theories of intoxicated aggression emphasize alcohol's ability to disrupt cognitive processing. There is research evidence, albeit indirect, that suggests that alcohol impairs the drinker's ability to understand the consequences of aggression, thus undermining rational choice as the core of behavioral decisions. Like alcohol, anger also impacts the executive cognitive functions. The high levels of arousal associated with anger are believed to disrupt neural activity and impair cognitive functioning. In order to test the impact of alcohol and anger on cognitive functioning in decisions to engage in violence, 84 male students of legal drinking age were recruited at a Mid-Atlantic university. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions before completing the study. All participants were randomly assigned to either an "alcohol" or a "no alcohol" condition. Those in the alcohol condition were given 1.5 ounces of 50-percent ethanol (vodka) per 40 pounds of body weight, diluted in a 1:2 solution with orange juice. Participants were also randomly assigned to either an "anger" or a "no anger" condition. To induce anger, the experimenter falsely accused the participant of arriving 30 minutes late to the research laboratory. Participants were presented with a "bar fight" scenario, followed by a series of questions that measured the aggressive intentions of the participant if confronted with the scenario and the perceived consequences of engaging in violent behavior. Findings show that alcohol and anger interacted to increase one measure of aggression, but the perceived costs and benefits of violence were unaffected. Thus, alcohol and anger interacted to increase aggressive intentions above and beyond the impact of selected cognitive mediators. This finding suggests that the rational choice model explains behavior only to the extent that the actor is capable of making rational choices for his/her behavior based in the actor's capacity to engage in an assessment of the full range of consequences and benefits likely to flow from various behavioral alternatives. 4 tables and 69 references