Is “maturing out” of problematic alcohol involvement related to personality change?

Abstract

Problematic alcohol involvement typically peaks in the early 20s and declines with age. This maturing out of alcohol involvement is usually attributed to individuals attaining adult statuses incompatible with heavy drinking. Nevertheless, little is known about how changes in problematic alcohol use during emerging/early adulthood relate to changes in etiologically relevant personality traits that also change during this period. This study examined the relation between changes in problematic alcohol involvement and personality (measures of impulsivity, neuroticism, and extraversion) from ages 18 to 35 in a cohort of college students (N = 489) at varying risk for alcohol use disorders. Latent growth models indicated that both normative and individual changes in alcohol involvement occur between ages 18 and 35 and that these changes are associated with changes in neuroticism and impulsivity. Moreover, marital and parental role statuses did not appear to be third-variable explanations of the associated changes in alcohol involvement and personality. Findings suggest that personality change may be an important mechanism in the maturing-out effect.Keywords personality change; personality; alcohol use disorders; maturing out; prospective study Problematic alcohol involvement, including drinking that leads to unwanted consequences and/ or alcohol use disorders (AUDs), tends to increase through late adolescence, peak in the early 20s, and decline as individuals age (Dawson, Grant, Stinson, & Chou, 2004;Fillmore, 1988;Johnston, O'Malley, & Bachman, 1998). This period of normative decline in problematic use has been referred to as maturing out (Christo, 1998;Donovan, Jessor, & Jessor, 1983;Winick, 1962) and is thought to be linked to individuals' assuming adult roles and responsibilities and adopting a more conventional lifestyle (Bachman et al., 2002;Fillmore, 1988;Jessor, Donovan, & Costa, 1991;Yamaguchi & Kandel, 1985) toward the end of "emerging adulthood" (roughly ages 18-25 years old; Arnett, 2000), the transitional period from adolescence to young adulthood.In a recent article reviewing the tendency of individuals to mature out of problematic alcohol use, O'Malley (2004O'Malley ( -2005 discussed common transitions experienced during emerging adulthood, such as marriage and parenthood, and how they relate to declines in problematic drinking. For example, marriage has been shown to reduce alcohol consumption, especially problematic alcohol use (Bachman et al., 2002;Bachman, Wadsworth, O'Malley, Johnston, & Schulenberg, 1997;Leonard & Rothbard, 1999). Pregnant women appear to reduce their alcohol use for a number of reasons, including the belief that alcohol is harmful to the Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Andrew K. Littlefield, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, 200 South 7th Street, Columbia, MO 65211-0001. E-mail: littlefielda@missouri.edu. (Coles, 1994). Furthermore, becoming a parent appears to be the key event to prompt men to reduce thei...

The influence of groups and alcohol consumption on individual risk-taking

“…Alcohol consumption is generally found to be greater among college/university students than that typically observed in other groups (O'Malley & Johnston, 2002;Santos Jr. et al, 2014;Tzilos, Caviness, Anderson, & Stein, 2016;Wicki, Kuntsche, & Gmel, 2010). Those who attend university also appear less likely to display alcohol use problems than other groups, as students frequently 'mature out' of the heavy drinking patterns (Littlefield, Sher, & Wood, 2009). These characteristics present issues when attempting to generalise more widely to non-student populations.…”

“…As such, care should be taken when seeking to generalise findings from the current thesis to non-student samples who may engage in different drinking practices with conceivable differences with regards to their performance on tasks utilised in the current thesis (e.g., the shuffleboard game in study three) (Tomaso et al, 2015;Zamboanga et al, 2014) Finally, demographic variations between students and non-students may affect risk taking and alcohol consumption practices as a whole. For example, independent of student status, being away from parental supervision (Buddie & Testa, 2005) is associated with increasing levels of alcohol consumption (Evans-Polce, Maggs, Staff, & Lanza, 2017;Littlefield et al, 2009), and experiences of risky sexual situations (Buddie & Testa, 2005).…”

Predictores del consumo semanal de alcohol y sus consecuencias asociadas en universitarios consumidores intensivos de alcohol

“…Por un lado, se observa una relación entre todos ellos similar a la enunciada en la introducción (Conrod et al, 2006: Cooper et al, 2000Hussong, 2003;Ibáñez et al, 2010;Littlefield et al, 2009;Martín, 2011;Ruiz et al, 2003;Stewart et al, 2001), ya que las puntuaciones más altas se encuentran en Neuroticismo y Extraversión, quedando en un segundo plano las de Amabilidad y Responsabilidad. Esto permite definir al CIA como una persona con reacciones emocionales que pueden interferir en su propio equilibrio, haciéndolo actuar de manera irracional e incluso rígida.…”

“…Así, el perfil de personalidad característico de los jóve-nes CIA podría definirse por niveles elevados en Neuroticismo (Conrod et al, 2006;Cooper et al, 2000;Hussong, 2003;Littlefield, Sher y Wood, 2009;Martín, 2011;Ruiz et al, 2003;Stewart et al, 2001) y Extraversión (Cooper et al, 2000;Hussong, 2003;Martin, 2011;Littlefield et al, 2009;Ruiz et al, 2003) y bajos en Responsabilidad (Ibáñez et al, 2010;Ruiz et al, 2003;Stewart et al, 2001) y Amabilidad (Hussong, 2003;Ibáñez et al, 2010;Ruiz et al, 2003;Stewart et al, 2001).…”

“…La literatura ha demostrado la existencia de una relación significativa entre la impulsividad y el CIA (Adan, 2012;Field, Schoenmakers y Wiers, 2008;Goudriaan, Grekin, Sher, 2011;MacKillop, Mattson, Anderson, Castelda y Donovick, 2007;Prado, Crespo, Brenlla y Páramo, 2007;Simons, Carey y Gaher, 2004;White et al, 2011) y entre este rasgo y la experimentación de consecuencias negativas como resultado de esta ingesta (Fischer y Smith, 2008;Littlefield et al, 2009;Ruiz et al, 2003;Simons, Gaher, Correia, Hunsen y Christopher, 2005;Simons et al, 2004).…”