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Testing the Four-Factor Model of Personality Vulnerability to Alcohol Misuse: A Three-Wave, One-Year Longitudinal Study

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Sean P. Mackinnon
Sean P. Mackinnon
Sean P. Mackinnon
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Ivy-Lee Kehayes at Dalhousie University
Ivy-Lee Kehayes
Roderick Clark at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine
Roderick Clark
Simon B. Sherry at Dalhousie University
Simon B. Sherry
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Abstract

The 4-factor model of personality vulnerability identifies 4 personality risk factors for alcohol misuse: hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. These personality traits are associated with distinct mechanisms and motivations for alcohol misuse. Individuals high in hopelessness drink to regulate dysphoric affect, while those high in anxiety sensitivity drink to reduce anxiety and to conform to peer expectations. Individuals high in sensation seeking are highly sensitive to the rewarding properties of alcohol, and misuse alcohol to maximize enjoyment. Impulsivity is a broad risk factor contributing to all drinking motives. We hypothesized that personality vulnerabilities would indirectly predict alcohol quantity and problems through specific drinking motives theorized by the 4-factor model. The present study tested hypotheses using a 3-wave, 1-year longitudinal study of undergraduate drinkers (N 302). Data were analyzed using multilevel path analysis. Hopelessness and impulsivity were positively related to drinking motives in the expected fashion. Anxiety sensitivity was related to coping-anxiety and conformity motives only in the between-subjects model (partially supporting hypotheses), while sensation seeking was generally unrelated to all drinking motives and alcohol outcomes (failing to support hypotheses). Enhancement motives predicted alcohol quantity and problems at both levels, coping-depression motives predicted alcohol problems at the between-subjects level only, and coping-anxiety, conformity, and social motives failed to predict alcohol outcomes beyond other motives. Overall, this study partially supports the 4-factor model, with the strongest support emerging for impulsivity and hopelessness. This study suggests that personality traits such as impulsivity and hopelessness may be important targets in prevention and treatment with undergraduate drinkers.
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Testing the Four-Factor Model of Personality Vulnerability to Alcohol
Misuse: A Three-Wave, One-Year Longitudinal Study
Sean P. Mackinnon, Ivy-Lee L. Kehayes, Roderick Clark, Simon B. Sherry, and Sherry H. Stewart
Dalhousie University
The 4-factor model of personality vulnerability identifies 4 personality risk factors for alcohol misuse:
hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. These personality traits are asso-
ciated with distinct mechanisms and motivations for alcohol misuse. Individuals high in hopelessness
drink to regulate dysphoric affect, while those high in anxiety sensitivity drink to reduce anxiety and to
conform to peer expectations. Individuals high in sensation seeking are highly sensitive to the rewarding
properties of alcohol, and misuse alcohol to maximize enjoyment. Impulsivity is a broad risk factor
contributing to all drinking motives. We hypothesized that personality vulnerabilities would indirectly
predict alcohol quantity and problems through specific drinking motives theorized by the 4-factor model.
The present study tested hypotheses using a 3-wave, 1-year longitudinal study of undergraduate drinkers
(N⫽302). Data were analyzed using multilevel path analysis. Hopelessness and impulsivity were
positively related to drinking motives in the expected fashion. Anxiety sensitivity was related to
coping-anxiety and conformity motives only in the between-subjects model (partially supporting hy-
potheses), while sensation seeking was generally unrelated to all drinking motives and alcohol outcomes
(failing to support hypotheses). Enhancement motives predicted alcohol quantity and problems at both
levels, coping-depression motives predicted alcohol problems at the between-subjects level only, and
coping-anxiety, conformity, and social motives failed to predict alcohol outcomes beyond other motives.
Overall, this study partially supports the 4-factor model, with the strongest support emerging for
impulsivity and hopelessness. This study suggests that personality traits such as impulsivity and
hopelessness may be important targets in prevention and treatment with undergraduate drinkers.
Keywords: sensation seeking, hopelessness, impulsivity, anxiety sensitivity, drinking motives
Alcohol misuse among young adults is common, with 16.1% of
Canadian undergraduates reporting they are frequent, heavy drink-
ers, and 43.9% of undergraduates reporting at least one negative
consequence due to alcohol use (i.e., alcohol problems), such as
injury or memory loss (Adlaf, Demers, & Gliksman, 2004). More-
over, an estimated 18.0–27.0% of undergraduates will experience
an alcohol use disorder in their lifetime (Vergés, Littlefield, &
Sher, 2011). The harmful effects of alcohol are well established,
with at least 60 medical conditions linked to heavy alcohol con-
sumption (e.g., heart disease, liver cirrhosis, cancer; Room, Babor,
& Rehm, 2005). Due to its deleterious effects on health and
lifestyle, our study focuses on personality factors and motivations
underlying alcohol consumption and problems in undergraduates.
Drinking Motives Theory
Motivational models of drinking (Cox & Klinger, 1988) contend
individuals drink to achieve desired outcomes. Drinking motives
may be categorized not only by their valence (i.e., positively or
negatively reinforcing), but also by their source (i.e., internal or
external; Cooper, 1994). Crossing these two dimensions led to the
four-factor model of drinking motives: Conformity motives (neg-
ative and external; drinking to reduce social rejection), social
motives (positive and external; drinking to increase social affilia-
tion), enhancement motives (positive and internal; drinking to
increase pleasurable emotions), and coping motives (negative and
internal; drinking to reduce negative emotions). This four-factor
model explains drinking behavior at all ages (Crutzen, Kuntsche,
& Schelleman-Offermans, 2013;Kuntsche, Knibbe, Gmel, & En-
gels, 2005). Because anxiety and depression are different affective
states with differential links to alcohol misuse, Grant, Stewart,
O’Connor, Blackwell, and Conrod (2007) split coping motives into
coping-anxiety (i.e., drinking to reduce anxious mood) and coping-
depression (drinking to reduce depressed mood). Grant et al.
This article was published Online First August 18, 2014.
Ivy-Lee L. Kehayes, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience,
Dalhousie University; Sean P. Mackinnon, Sherry H. Stewart, and Simon
B. Sherry, Departments of Psychiatry, and Psychology and Neuroscience,
Dalhousie University; Roderick Clark, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie
University.
This study was funded by an operating grant from the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) awarded to Sherry
H. Stewart and to Simon B. Sherry. Sean P. Mackinnon was supported by
a postdoctoral fellowship from SSHRC. Roderick Clark was supported by
the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine Marvin Burke Studentship in
Alcohol and Substance Abuse Research. Ivy-Lee Kehayes was supported
by a Faculty of Science Undergraduate Summer Research Award at Dal-
housie University. Sean Alexander, Anne Brochu, Kristen Bailey, Pam
Collins, Laura Lambe, Jennifer Swansburg, as well as numerous student
volunteers, are thanked for their research assistance.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sean P.
Mackinnon, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie Uni-
versity, Life Sciences Centre, 1355 Oxford Street, PO Box 15000, Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 4R2. E-mail: mackinnon.sean@gmail.com
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Psychology of Addictive Behaviors © 2014 American Psychological Association
2014, Vol. 28, No. 4, 1000–1012 0893-164X/14/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037244
1000
... Others have had to utilize post-hoc modifications (i.e., removing items, correlating errors of similarly worded and reverse-scored items, itemfactor cross-loadings) to obtain adequate fit indices among adolescent samples (CFI = 0.89 to 0.94; RMSEA = 0.04 to 0.06) (Ali et al., 2016;Jurk et al., 2015;Krank et al., 2011;Malmberg et al., 2010) as well as within emerging adult and clinical-adult samples (CFI = 0.90 to 0.96; RMSEA = 0.03 to 0.05) (Canfield et al., 2015;Schlauch et al., 2015). Across studies that retained all 23 items, internal consistency estimates for the subscales ranged from 0.46 to 0.88 for adolescent samples (Jurk et al., 2015;Memetovic et al., 2014;Omiya et al., 2015;Siu, 2011) and 0.65 to 0.96 for adults (Canfield et al., 2015;Hustad et al., 2014;Mackinnon et al., 2014). Overall, in line with Blanchard and colleagues' (2020) conclusion, validation studies of the SURPS have generally been unable to confirm the independent-clusters four-factor structure without the use of post-hoc modifications. ...
... Among adults, there are also inconsistent findings for the predictive validity of the SURPS subscales, with most studies focussed on emerging adulthood. Across studies, there is varied support for the positive relation between each personality risk subscale and current alcohol use and both current and future alcohol-related problems (e.g., Canfield et al., 2015;Schlauch et al., 2015;Hustad et al., 2014;Mackinnon et al., 2014;Moser et al., 2014;Woicik et al., 2009 suggesting a negative association between anxiety sensitivity and current alcohol use. Positive associations have been found between the anxietysensitivity subscale and current sedative drug use (any type of use; Canfield et al., 2015;Woicik et al., 2009), the sensation-seeking subscale with current cannabis use (Canfield et al., 2015), and the impulsivity subscale with current drug-related problems (Schlauch et al., 2015). ...
... Although there has been inconsistent evidence for the predictive validity of the SURPS subscales in predicting alcohol-related outcomes, in this sample we see differential predictive validity. The hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, and sensation seeking subscales predicted current alcohol use problems, consistent with previous research with adult participants (e.g., Hustad et al., 2014;Mackinnon et al., 2014;Schlauch et al., 2015). The sensation seeking subscale predicted hazardous alcohol use, extending previous work among adolescents to adulthood (e.g., Jurk et al., 2015). ...
The Substance Use Risk Profile Scale in Adulthood: An Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling Approach
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2023
  • J PSYCHOPATHOL BEHAV
The substance use risk profile scale (SURPS) was developed to assess four personality risk factors: hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. Psychometric validation work—mainly with adolescents and emerging adults—has struggled to support a four-factor simple structure without post-hoc modifications. This study aimed to clarify the factor structure of the SURPS using the most appropriate analytic framework in a sample of adults and investigate its ability to predict various alcohol-related outcomes and motives. Adult participants (N = 400; Mage = 32.05, 55% male) completed the SURPS and measures capturing drinking habits and motives. Confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) approaches were used to analyze the dimensionality of the SURPS items, with measurement invariance examined across gender and age. Predictive validity was analyzed using multiple linear regression with observed subscale scores. Following poor fit of a traditional CFA model with four correlated factors, a four-factor ESEM model (allowing for non-zero item cross-loadings) provided a much stronger fit to the SURPS data. This ESEM model also had scalar invariance across age and gender. Observed subscale scores predicted hypothesized drinking motives. Sensation seeking uniquely predicted hazardous alcohol use while hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, and sensation seeking uniquely predicted alcohol-related problems. SURPS model fit was substantially better when using a contemporary ESEM approach. This approach tackles the challenge of CFA being too constraining when faced with the reality of item responses being influenced by correlated clinical constructs.
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... 16 Hopelessness often leads to an increase in addictive behaviors such as substance misuse. 17,18 Similarly, hopelessness may lead adolescents to become addicted to mobile networks to escape the challenges of reality. However, few studies have examined the relationship between hopelessness and MPA among NSSI adolescents. ...
... Data of 136 participants were excluded due to missing responses and random responding (participants who gave same answers for all items). Thus, we retained a final sample of 2098 participants (female 77.9%) aged 12 to 18 ...
Relationship Between Loneliness, Hopelessness, Coping Style, and Mobile Phone Addiction Among Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Adolescents
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2024
Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between loneliness and hopelessness and mobile phone addiction (MPA) in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) adolescents, exploring the mediating role of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. Methods This cross-sectional study recruited a total of 1545 NSSI adolescents and 553 non-NSSI adolescents from over 20 specialized psychiatric hospitals across multiple provinces in China. The participants were asked to complete the Beck’s Hopelessness Scale, UCLA Loneliness Scale, Coping Style Scale, and Mobile Phone Addiction Index questionnaire. We mainly used the t-tests and structural equation model to analyze the data. Results T-tests showed that NSSI adolescents had lower scores on problem-focused coping and higher scores on MPA, loneliness, hopelessness, and emotion-focused coping than non-NSSI adolescents. Structural equation model showed that loneliness and hopelessness were positively related to MPA for non-NSSI adolescents. Hopelessness was positively related to MPA for NSSI adolescents. Emotion-focused coping played a mediating role in the relationship between loneliness/hopelessness and MPA for both NSSI and non-NSSI adolescents. Conclusion These findings suggest that NSSI adolescents with loneliness and hopelessness may have mobile phone dependence, highlighting the mediating role of emotion-focused coping style. Such findings help to understand the formation mechanism of MPA for adolescents with NSSI. Alleviating the loneliness and hopelessness and improving adaptive coping styles of adolescents with NSSI have potential implications for reducing their MPA.
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... There is consistent evidence linking personality traits, such as impulsivity and sensation-seeking to adolescent binge drinking (i.e. consumption of high quantities of alcohol in short time-periods) [9][10][11]. With respect to the 'big five' classification of personality traits, a recent meta-analysis [12] showed that higher levels of extraversion and lower levels of conscientiousness were most consistently associated with binge drinking among a predominantly young adult sample. ...
... One potential explanation for this inconsistency might arise from the application of different analysis methods across studies. That is, whereas studies reporting a relationship between impulsivity and drinking motives primarily relied upon zero-order correlations [10,27,53], the use of partial correlations has failed to reveal such associations [41]. In the current study we replicated that pattern, finding significant Pearson's correlations (r = 0.16-0.29, ...
Drinking Motives, Personality Traits, Life Stressors - Identifying Pathways to Harmful Alcohol Use in Adolescence Using a Panel Network Approach
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2023
  • ADDICTION
Background and aims: Models of alcohol use risk suggest that drinking motives represent the most proximal risk factors on which more distal factors converge. However, little is known about how distinct risk factors influence each other and alcohol use on different temporal scales (within a given moment vs. over time). We aimed to estimate the dynamic associations of distal (personality and life stressors) and proximal (drinking motives) risk factors, and their relationship to alcohol use in adolescence and early adulthood using a novel graphical vector autoregressive (GVAR) panel network approach. Design, setting, and cases: We estimated panel networks on data from the IMAGEN study, a longitudinal European cohort study following adolescents across three waves (ages 16, 19, 22). Our sample consisted of 1829 adolescents (51% females) who reported alcohol use on at least one assessment wave. Measurements: Risk factors included personality traits (NEO-FFI: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness; SURPS: impulsivity and sensation seeking), stressful life events (LEQ: sum scores of stressful life events), and drinking motives (DMQ: social, enhancement, conformity, coping anxiety, coping depression). We assessed alcohol use (AUDIT: quantity and frequency) and alcohol-related problems (AUDIT: related problems). Findings: Within a given moment, social (partial correlation (pcor) =0.17) and enhancement motives (pcor=0.15) co-occurred most strongly with drinking quantity and frequency, while coping depression motives (pcor=0.13), openness (pcor=0.05), and impulsivity (pcor=0.09) were related to alcohol-related problems. The temporal network showed no predictive associations between distal risk factors and drinking motives. Social motives (beta=0.21), previous alcohol use (beta=0.11), and openness (beta=0.10) predicted alcohol-related problems over time (all p<0.01). Conclusions: Heavy and frequent alcohol use, along with social drinking motives, appear to be key targets for preventing the development of alcohol-related problems throughout late adolescence. We found no evidence for personality traits and life stressors predisposing towards distinct drinking motives over time.
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... Een voorbeeld van een gepersonaliseerde benadering is CGT aangepast aan de persoonlijkheidsprofielen van een individu (dat wil zeggen: angstgevoeligheid, negatief denken, impulsiviteit en sensatie zoeken; Morin et al., 2017). Aangetoond is dat deze vier persoonlijkheidsprofielen samenhangen met middelengebruik (Hecimovic et al., 2014 Mackinnon et al., 2014), ook bij mensen met een LVB (Pieterse et al., 2020;Poelen et al., 2022). Zo gebruiken mensen met het profiel angstgevoeligheid of negatief denken meestal middelen om met negatieve emoties om te gaan, terwijl mensen met het profiel impulsiviteit of sensatie zoeken middelen gebruiken om een positieve bekrachtiging te krijgen (Comeau et al., 2001). ...
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... The Drinking Motives Model (Cooper, 1994) proposes that individuals may consume alcohol to: (1) increase their positive affect through social motives, (2) increase their positive affect through enhancement motives, or (3) reduce negative affect. Of these three, drinking to cope is of primary concern because it is most likely to be associated with substance misuse (Mackinnon et al., 2014;Moran & Saliba, 2011). This theoretical explanation, although specific to alcohol, has been found to be transferable to other substances, such as cannabis (Cooper et al., 2016). ...
Trauma Exposure and Substance Use in Journalists: A Narrative Review
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Full-text available
  • Dec 2023
Individuals and teams in the journalism community cover stories relating to death, destruction, and tragedy in society, exposing themselves to potentially traumatic events (PTEs). The aim of this review was to explore: (1) the impact trauma exposure may have on substance use, (2) substance use as a method of coping, and (3) personality profiles that are predictive of substance use. Findings indicate that journalists are exposed to a wide variety of PTEs. Despite substance use being considered a trauma reaction in the broader literature, this connection has not been adequately addressed within journalist samples. The most common substance researched in journalists is alcohol consumption, with few studies considering other substances (e.g., nicotine, caffeine, or illicit substances). Future research with journalist samples could evaluate substance use as a method of coping and incorporate broader theory relating to substance use risk personality profiles. There is a need to bridge the gap that exists between broader trauma and substance use literature and a focus on journalist samples, with the intention of: (1) providing a more holistic understanding of psychosocial issues associated with trauma exposure and substance use to inform diagnosis and treatment, (2) assessing risk and protective factors for this community, (3) informing the development of health promotion and education programs specific to practising journalists and journalistic organisations, and (4) highlighting opportunities for trauma specific education targeted at those training to become a journalist, including protective coping strategies.
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... An example of a personalized approach is personality-targeted CBT (Morin et al., 2017). Personality-targeted CBT takes into account an individual's personality profile (i.e., anxiety sensitivity, negative thinking, impulsivity, and sensation seeking), as these four personality profiles have shown to be associated with SU (e.g., risk factor, reasons, type of substance; Hecimovic et al., 2014;Krank et al., 2011;Mackinnon et al., 2014), also in individuals with MID-BIF (Pieterse et al., 2020;Poelen et al., 2022). ...
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... Crossing these two dimensions of desired outcomes yields four distinct drinking motives: social (positiveexternal motives; to increase social affiliation), enhancement (positive-internal motives; to heighten pleasurable sensations or affect), conformity (negative-external motives; to alleviate/avoid social rejection), and coping (negative-internal motives; to reduce undesirable internal states) [27]. Of these four motives, coping motives appear the riskiest or among the riskiest [29]; they consistently predict heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems both cross-sectionally [30,31] and longitudinally [28,32,33]. ...
Drinking to Cope Mediates the Association between Dyadic Conflict and Drinking Behavior: A Study of Romantic Couples during the COVID-19 Pandemic
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Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred public health measures to reduce viral spread. Concurrently, increases in alcohol consumption and conflict in romantic partnerships were observed. Pre-pandemic research demonstrated a bidirectional association between couples’ conflict and drinking. Recent research shows one’s drinking motives (proximal predictors of drinking behavior) can influence another person’s drinking in close relationships. It is possible that individuals are drinking to cope with distress following romantic conflict. The current study examined 348 cohabitating couples during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. Our analyses examined coping motives as a mediator between dyadic conflict and drinking behavior using actor–partner interdependence models. Results showed that conflict was associated with greater reports of own drinking in gendered (distinguishable) and nongendered (indistinguishable) analyses through coping motives. Further, in mixed-gender couples, men partners’ coping motives predicted less drinking in women, while women partners’ coping motives predicted marginally more drinking in men. Partner effects may have been observed due to the increased romantic partner influence during the COVID-19 lockdown. While these results suggest that men’s coping motives may be protective against women’s drinking, more concerning possibilities are discussed. The importance of considering dyadic influences on drinking is highlighted; clinical and policy implications are identified.
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Young adult drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the role of anxiety sensitivity, perceived stress, and drinking motives
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Studies have shown that those high in anxiety were at increased risk for alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tension reduction theory points to anxiety sensitivity (AS) as a potential risk factor. Drinking to cope may further increase this risk. During the pandemic, those high in AS may have experienced increased stress and drank to cope, which may have put them at risk for misusing alcohol. Objective: The current study tested the association between AS and alcohol outcomes, mediated by perceived stress and drinking motives, among young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants and Methods: Young adults (N = 143) self-reported on AS, perceived stress, drinking motives, and alcohol outcomes (i.e., use and problems). Results: A mediation analysis revealed that AS positively predicted alcohol problems, via coping motives, and positively predicted alcohol use, via perceived stress and enhancement/sociability motives. Conclusion: These results confirm AS-risk for young adult alcohol use during the pandemic and highlight perceived stress and drinking motives as mechanisms of risk.
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Drinking to Cope as a Vulnerability Factor for Alcohol Use Disorder: Evidence from Clinical and Preclinical Research
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  • Dec 2024
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a chronic condition in which the individual keeps drinking despite recognizing that such behavior is associated with a plethora of negative social, occupational, and health consequences. Several factors promote (e.g., a family history of AUD, exposure to aversive events, an early age of first alcohol use or intoxication) or deter (e.g., high levels of paternal monitoring and low levels of impulsivity-like personality traits) from risky drinking and AUD, and are thus referred to as vulnerability or protective factors, respectively. These factors can be described as distal factors that interact in increasingly complex manners and ultimately affect drinking behavior via more proximal factors, such as drinking motives, greater perception of alcohol-related cues or greater sensitivity to ethanol’s pharmacological effects. The present chapter puts forward the hypothesis that an anxiety-prone phenotype or the motivation of drinking to cope (DTC) with negative emotions is a common and proximal mediator of a wide range of vulnerability factors for AUD or risky drinking, ranging from personality traits to environmental exposure to aversive life events or early alcohol exposure. Specifically, we review preclinical studies indicating that rats or mice selectively bred for high alcohol drinking across several generations or exposed to ethanol during pregnancy or to experimental stress exhibit greater ethanol intake and preference. These behaviors are associated with reduced exploration of brightly lit environments or greater shelter seeking. We similarly describe clinical work indicating that drinking to cope (DTC) motives are a primary mechanism through which psychosocial constructs relate to problematic alcohol use and consequences.
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Anxiety Sensitivity as a Transdiagnostic Factor in Emotional Disorders, Addictive Disorders, and Their Comorbidities: How Basic Research Informs Intervention Research
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Validation of a System of Classifying Female Substance Abusers on the Basis of Personality and Motivational Risk Factors for Substance Abuse
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Full-text available
  • Sep 2000
This study explored the validity of classifying a community-recruited sample of substance-abusing women (N = 293) according to 4 personality risk factors for substance abuse (anxiety sensitivity, introversion–hopelessness, sensation seeking, and impulsivity). Cluster analyses reliably identified 5 subtypes of women who demonstrated differential lifetime risk for various addictive and nonaddictive disorders. An anxiety-sensitive subtype demonstrated greater lifetime risk for anxiolytic dependence, somatization disorder, and simple phobia, whereas an introverted–hopeless subtype evidenced a greater lifetime risk for opioid dependence, social phobia, and panic and depressive disorders. Sensation seeking was associated with exclusive alcohol dependence, and impulsivity was associated with higher rates of antisocial personality disorder and cocaine and alcohol dependence. Finally, a low personality risk subtype demonstrated lower lifetime rates of substance dependence and psychopathology.
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Anxiety sensitivity and substance use and abuse
Chapter
Full-text available
  • Jan 1999
Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is the fear of anxiety sensations which arises from beliefs that these sensations have harmful somatic, social, or psychological consequences. Over the past decade, AS has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers and clinicians with more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles published. In addition, AS has been the subject of numerous symposia, papers, and posters at professional conventions. Why this growing interest? Theory and research suggest that AS plays an important role in the etiology and maintenance of many forms of psychopathology, including anxiety disorders, depression, chronic pain, and substance abuse. Bringing together experts from a variety of different areas, this volume offers the first comprehensive state-of-the-art review of AS--its conceptual foundations, assessment, causes, consequences, and treatment--and points new directions for future work. It will prove to be an invaluable resource for clinicians, researchers, students, and trainees in all mental health professions.
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Hopelessness and excessive drinking among Aboriginal adolescents: The mediating roles of depressive symptoms and drinking to cope
Article
  • Jan 2010
Canadian Aboriginal youth show high rates of excessive drinking, hopelessness, and depressive symptoms. We propose that Aboriginal adolescents with higher levels of hopelessness are more susceptible to depressive symptoms, which in turn predispose them to drinking to cope-which ultimately puts them at risk for excessive drinking. Adolescent drinkers (n = 551; 52% boys; mean age = 15.9 years) from 10 Canadian schools completed a survey consisting of the substance use risk profile scale (hopelessness), the brief symptom inventory (depressive symptoms), the drinking motives questionnaire-revised (drinking to cope), and quantity, frequency, and binge measures of excessive drinking. Structural equation modeling demonstrated the excellent fit of a model linking hopelessness to excessive drinking indirectly via depressive symptoms and drinking to cope. Bootstrapping indicated that this indirect effect was significant. Both depressive symptoms and drinking to cope should be intervention targets to prevent/decrease excessive drinking among Aboriginal youth high in hopelessness.
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The Substance Use Risk Profile Scale: a scale measuring traits linked to reinforcement-specific substance use profiles
Article
  • Aug 2009
  • ADDICT BEHAV
The Substance Use Risk Profile Scale (SURPS) is based on a model of personality risk for substance abuse in which four personality dimensions (hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation seeking) are hypothesized to differentially relate to specific patterns of substance use. The current series of studies is a preliminary exploration of the psychometric properties of the SURPS in two populations (undergraduate and high school students). In study 1, an analysis of the internal structure of two versions of the SURPS shows that the abbreviated version best reflects the 4-factor structure. Concurrent, discriminant, and incremental validity of the SURPS is supported by convergent/divergent relationships between the SURPS subscales and other theoretically relevant personality and drug use criterion measures. In Study 2, the factorial structure of the SURPS is confirmed and evidence is provided for its test–retest reliability and validity with respect to measuring personality vulnerability to reinforcement-specific substance use patterns. In Study 3, the SURPS was administered in a more youthful population to test its sensitivity in identifying younger problematic drinkers. The results from the current series of studies demonstrate support for the reliability and construct validity of the SURPS, and suggest that four personality dimensions may be linked to substance-related behavior through different reinforcement processes. This brief assessment tool may have important implications for clinicians and future research.
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Personality and Substance Misuse: Evidence for a Four-Factor Model of Vulnerability
Chapter
  • Jul 2012
The emphasis made on the significance of personality in the development of substance use problems has varied substantially through the years. Although early research has focused on identifying a single personality trait that conferred risk for substance use and misuse, recent research has highlighted the complex nature and heterogeneity of substance use behaviours and profiles, identifying a number of traits and risk pathways to substance use problems. This chapter reviews the evidence which provides support for the important aetiological role of a number of personality traits in the development and maintenance of substance use problems. Four personality-based causal pathways to substance misuse are proposed that help to explain some of the underlying mechanisms linking substance misuse with other mental disorders. Finally, implications for prevention and clinical practise are discussed.
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Temperament and Problematic Alcohol Use in Adolescence: an Examination of Drinking Motives as Mediators
Article
  • Jun 2012
The present study investigated the associations between temperamental reactivity, drinking motives, alcohol consumption and alcohol-related consequences. Furthermore, it investigated whether drinking motives mediate the relations between temperamental reactivity and the alcohol use variables. The sample consisted of 188 adolescents (64.9% boys) between the ages of 13–20 years (M age = 16.9, SD = 1.32). Results revealed that the temperament factors of high BAS fun seeking and high negative affectivity were related to alcohol consumption and alcohol-related consequences respectively. Furthermore, high social and enhancement motives and low conformity motives were associated with alcohol consumption, whereas high coping-depression motives were associated with alcohol-related consequences. Finally, the relation between BAS fun seeking and alcohol consumption was mediated by enhancement and social motives and the association between negative affectivity and alcohol-related consequences was mediated by coping-depression motives. These results highlight the importance of focusing on temperament profiles and their associated drinking motives in the prevention and intervention of alcohol use problems among adolescents.
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