Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality

Personality and Social Sciences

Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an

addictive personality?

KRISTINA BERGLUND,1 ERIKA ROMAN,2 JAN BALLDIN,3 ULF BERGGREN,3 MATTS ERIKSSON,3

PETTER GUSTAVSSON4 and CLAUDIA FAHLKE1

1Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden 2Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Division of Pharmacology, Uppsala University, Sweden 3Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Physiology, Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry Sweden 4Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality

Berglund, K., Roman, E., Balldin, J., Berggren, U., Eriksson, M., Gustavsson, P. & Fahlke, C. (2011). Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 257–260.

The existence of an ‘‘addictive’’ personality has been extensively debated. The current study investigated personality in male individuals with excessive alcohol consumption (n = 100) in comparison to a population-based control group (n = 131). The individuals with excessive alcohol consumption were recruited by advertisements in a regional daily newspaper and controls from a population based Swedish Twin Registry. Personality was assessed by the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP). Comparisons were made with normative data. Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality

Furthermore, by using a multivariate projection-based approach (Principal Component Analysis; PCA), hidden structures of traits and possible relationships among the individuals with excessive consumption and the controls was investigated. The individuals with excessive alcohol consumption as well as the controls had mean values within the normative range in all scales of the KSP.

Moreover, the PCA analysis revealed no systematic between-group separation. Taken together, this result demonstrates that male individ- uals with excessive alcohol consumption do not have a personality different from that of a general population, which supports the notion of no ‘‘addictive personality’’. Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality

Key words: Personality, men, excessive alcohol consumption.

Kristina Berglund, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 500, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden. Tel: 46-31-786 18 78; fax: 46-31- 786 46 28; e-mail: Kristina.Berglund@psy.gu.se. Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality

INTRODUCTION

There have been several attempts to describe individuals with

excessive alcohol consumption according to personality and other

characteristics and then classify them into cluster groups or multi-

dimensional typologies. Besides the typologies of alcoholism by

Babor (1996) and Lesch and Walter (1996), one of the most com-

monly used typology is the type 1 and type 2 alcoholism devel-

oped by Cloninger, Bohman and Sigvardsson (1981). Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality According

to this classification individuals with type 1 alcoholism are charac-

terized by social stability with late onset of alcoholism, few psy-

chopathological symptoms and social complications (Cloninger,

Sigvardsson & Bohman, 1996). In contrast, the type 2 alcoholics

have an earlier onset of alcoholism, more severe dependence with

serious social and medical consequences due to their drinking

behavior and also a more severe psychopathology (Cloninger

et al., 1981, 1996; Sigvardsson, Bohman & Cloninger, 1996).

Studies have also found that type 2 alcoholics have a different

personality profile in comparison to type 1 alcoholics, character-

ized by sensation seeking, impulsiveness, monotony avoidance

and aggressiveness (Cloninger et al., 1996; von Knorring, von

Knorring, Smigan, Lindberg & Edholm, 1987). Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality Furthermore, they

have a lower degree of harm avoidance and less feelings of guilt

(Cloninger et al., 1996, von Knorring et al., 1987). This personal-

ity pattern has some resemblance with various personality disor-

ders. In fact, some researchers have, for example, proposed that

type 2 alcoholism rather represents a separate diagnostic entity,

the antisocial personality disorder, than alcoholism itself (Schuckit

& Irwin, 1989). The personality profile of type 2 individuals is

thus fairly well investigated and discussed in the literature

(Cloninger et al., 1981, 1996, Sher, Trull, Bartholow & Vieth,

1999). Less is known whether Cloninger’s type 1 alcoholics also

are characterized by such a distinctive personality pattern as their

type 2 counterpart.

The majority of individuals with excessive alcohol consump-

tion have characteristics resembling those of type 1 alcoholics

(Cloninger et al., 1996), that is, few social complications and psy-

chopathological symptoms, and late onset of alcohol-related prob-

lems (see Berglund, 2009; Schuckit, 2009). To our knowledge,

there are no studies which have investigated whether individuals

with excessive alcohol consumption per se are characterized by

specific personality patterns. Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality

Aim

The main objective of the present study was to investigate person-

ality traits in a group of male individuals with excessive alcohol

consumption and in controls by comparison with normative data

and also by a multivariate projection-based approach. For the lat-

ter purpose, principal component analysis (PCA) was used for pat-

tern recognition and image compression, thus identifying the most

important gradients, that is, revealing the hidden structure of traits

(Eriksson, Johansson, Kettaneh-Wold, Trygg, Wikström & Wold,

2006). Personality traits were investigated by using the Karolinska

� 2011 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology � 2011 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0036-5564.

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2011, 52, 257–260 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2010.00872.x

Scales of Personality (KSP), which quantifies individual differ-

ences in habitual, overt behavior preferences, cognitive style and

reaction to a given situation (Schalling, Åsberg, Edman & Ore-

land, 1987). Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality