A - Risk Factors

Question 1

What is a Risk Factor?

Answer 1

Any variable that increases the chances of a particular behaviour occurring or makes an individual more vulnerable to developing that behaviour

Question 2

What are the 4 major risk factors for addictive behaviour?

Answer 2

Age
Peers
Personality
Stress

Question 3

Why is Age a risk factor?

Answer 3

Due to brain function - the pre-frontal cortex is not fully developed and this governs impulisivity (quick decisions), dopamine levels naturally dip around adolescence and then rise again in adulthood (need a behaviour to make up for this dip)

Question 4

What is wrong with Shrams research on Age?

Answer 4

Rats are not aware (as far as we know) of the long term damage that may occur from using cigarettes or of the disapproval of their parents/friends of the behaviour - may reduce smoking in adolescent

Question 5

Why is Peers a risk factor?

Answer 5

Influence on our behaviour through: peer pressure, ingroup-outgroup, social learning theory (models)

Question 6

Why is Personality a risk factor?

Answer 6

Based on Eysenecks personality theory
Links have been found between addiction and neuroticism (anxious, worrying), psychoticism (unempatheic, uncaring) and extraversion (sociable, impulsive)

Question 7

Name 2 weaknesses of Terreciana’s study

Answer 7

1. Most samples used in drug dependency research are ex/current addicts from treatment centres - so their neuroticism could be due to withdrawal symptoms rather than part of their personality
2. Studies that correlate behaviour with personality cannot show cause and effect

Question 8

Why is Stess a risk factor?

Answer 8

Some people are more vulnerable to the effects of stress and believe that addictive behaviours help them to cope
Traumatic life events can lead to addiction

Question 9

What idea does against Stress?

Answer 9

There’s a paradox - research indicates that smoking biologically increases stress levels