Associations Between the Big Five Personality Traits and the Non-Medical Use of Prescription Drugs for Cognitive Enhancement

Abstract

While the number of studies of the non-medical use of prescription drugs to augment cognitive functions is growing steadily, psychological factors that can potentially help explain variance in such pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement (CE) behavior are often neglected in research. This study investigates the association between the Big Five personality traits and a retrospective (prior CE-drug use) as well as a prospective (willingness to use CE drugs) measure of taking prescription drugs with the purpose of augmenting one's cognitive functions (e.g., concentration, memory, or vigilance) without medical necessity. We use data from a large representative survey of German employees (N = 6454, response rate = 29.8%). The Five Factor Model (FFM) of Personality was measured with a short version of the Big Five Personality Traits Inventory (BFI-S), which includes: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Together with this, demographic variables such as gender, age, education, and income were used as potential confounders in multiple logistic regression models. Our results show a 2.96% lifetime prevalence of CE-drug use and a 10.45% willingness to (re)use such drugs in the future. We found that less conscientious and more neurotic respondents have a higher probability of prior CE-drug use and a greater willingness to use CE drugs in the future. No significant effects were found for openness, extraversion, or agreeableness. Prior CE-drug use was strongly associated with a greater willingness to take such drugs in the future. This study shows that specific personality traits are not only associated with prior enhancement behavior, but also affect the willingness to (re)use such drugs. It helps increase understanding of the risk factors of CE-drug use, which is a health-related behavior that can entail severe side-effects for consumers. The knowledge gathered can thus help improve interventions aimed at minimizing health problems.

Prevalence and correlates of stimulant and depressant pharmacological cognitive enhancement among Norwegian students

“…Due to the shortage of research investigating the characteristics of students who choose to use PCE drugs, most of the current findings have, to our knowledge, not been previously reported. The finding that conscientiousness positively predicted depressant PCE drug use is at odds with a previous study of German employees that reported an inverse association between conscientiousness and use of PCE drugs (Sattler & Schunck, 2016).…”

Nonmedical use of prescription drugs for cognitive enhancement as response to chronic stress especially when social support is lacking

“…It indicates that CE‐drugs are currently not an epidemic in German universities. One reason might be limited access to these drugs (Singh et al, ), because the willingness to use such drugs in other populations seems to be higher than current use (Sattler & Schunck, ; Wiegel et al, ). There might be a willingness on the part of students, but an opportunity or reason to turn this willingness into action does not exist thus far (see Section for other explanations).…”

“…Have you ever done that?” (cf. Sattler & Schunck, ; Wiegel et al, ). Due to the low prevalence, the past 6‐month prevalence was generated by combing answers of both periods, indicating “no use” (0) and “prior use” (1; see Table for sample descriptive of all variables).…”

Cognitive Enhancement and Coping in an Australian University Student Sample

“…This has lead researchers to broaden their understanding of CE and to examine common underlying psychological factors, such as personality (Sattler and Schunck 2016); perfectionism (Stoeber and Hotham 2016); and stress (Ford and Schroeder 2009;Forlini et al 2015;Maier et al 2013;Wolff and Brand 2013) as potential predictors of drug use of this type. Adopting health psychology frameworks, some studies (e.g., Jensen et al 2016) have also considered the role of coping and its relation to CE.…”