Paper 3: Addiction Flashcards
What are the 5 risk factors in the development of addiction?
Genetic vulnerability Stress Personality Family influences Peers
What is the dopamine receptor gene?
Payne suggested that individuals who are vulnerable to drug addiction have:
1. A decreased ability to activate dopamine receptors
2. Low levels of dopamine receptors.
This means anything that increases the amount of dopamine can produce strong feelings euphoria (excitement) which can lead to addition.
Evaluation of genetic risk factors
Although studies of male alcoholics have consistently supported the important role played by genetic factors in the developmental of alcoholism, research with women has produced inconsistent findings.
For instance only 2 out of 5 twin studies found significantly greater concordance rates for alcoholism among female MZ twins than among female DZ twins. This suggests that genetic factors may be less important in the development of alcoholism in women than in men.
Genetics + dopamine + environment: The diathesis-stress model
An advantage of genetic explanations of addiction is that they can explain why some people develop addictive behaviour, yet others who have the same environmental experiences and life pressures do not.
Some people are more likely to develop an addiction because of their genetic vulnerability. For example having an A1 variant gene (which leads to low levels of dopamine) has been associated with cocaine dependency, nicotine dependence and polydrug abuse.
This suggests that individuals who inherit this gene variant are more vulnerable to develop addictive behaviour, as their addiction could lead to an increase in dopamine activity which will lead to an increase in rewarding feelings. However these addictions will only form with the aid of environmental factors.
Stress as a risk factors for addiction
Stress is also a risk factor for substance abuse. People deal with stressful events in their life by engaging in a variety of behaviours that make them feel better or help them forget the stress.
Self- medication
This proposes that some individuals intentionally use different forms of pathological behaviour (e.g. alcohol, drugs and pathological gambling) to treat the psychological symptoms they experience because of everyday stressors in life.
Research on drug abusers for example has shown that stress is one of the strongest predictors of relapse.
Although the behaviour does not actually make the situation better but the perception that it does is important in that behaviour becoming an addiction.
Traumatic stress
People exposed to severe stress are more vulnerable to addictions. For example, Robins interviewed US soldiers within a year of their return from the Vietnam war.
Of these, almost half had used class A drugs such a heroin during their tour of duty, with about 20% reporting that they had developed physical or psychological dependence for heroin at some point during their live in Vietnam.
Also Kessler found that in a sample of men with a history of PTSD 34% reported drug abuse or dependence at some point in their lives, compared to 15% of men without PTSD.
For women, 27% of those with a history of PTSD reported drug abuse or dependence compared to 8% without PTSD.
Evaluation of stress as for a risk factors
Effective coping strategies for stress should help - If addiction is a consequence of experiencing stress, then individuals who develop effective coping strategies for stress should have less of a need for addictive behaviour.
Research has supported this suggestion. For instance Weatherman carried out a follow up study of 263 smokers who had completed a national smoking cessation (quit) programme, and found that there was a strong relationship between participants use of stress coping resources (such as tension control and perceived confidence in being able to succeed) and their ability to maintain abstinence from smoking once they had given up.
The role of stress varies depending on the type of addiction - The link between stress and addiction is problematic in that it can only account for some types of addiction.
For instance the role of stress and drug addiction is fairly well established; Dawes found that stress was a significant predictor of drug relapse.
However, support for the role of stress in other forms of addiction is not as convincing. For example Arevalo interviewed 393 women from substance abuse programmes in Massachusetts.
From the interviews they found evidence of an association between stress and drug use, but no association between stress and alcohol addiction.
personality as a risk factors
Research studies have shown that personality characteristics do appear to play an important role in predicting patterns of substance abuse and the development of addiction.
Krueger identified certain personality traits are associated with addition. For example impulsivity (behaving without consideration of risks) is believed to contribute to a wide range of addictive behaviours such as alcohol abuse and gambling.
the addiction prone personality
Barnes created the Addiction prone personality (APP) scale as a way of assessing the influence of personality factors on addictive behaviour.
He found that personality type was a significant predictor of ‘heavy’ marijuana use.
Studies using the APP scale have found that it is an effective way of discriminating drug addicts and non-drug addicts, and predicting the severity of addition and likelihood of remission during recovery.
eval of personality as a risk factor
Support for the role of impulsivity
Longitudinal research has shown that impulsivity is a good predictor of later substance use and addiction.
For example McGee found that adolescents who progressed to heavier levels of alcohol abuse tended to score higher on scores of impulsivity.
implications of an addiction-prone personaity Evidence supports the link between certain personality characteristics and addictive behaviours.
For example Barnes showed that personality is a key predictor in the initiation and maintenance of substance abuse.
Discuss what you think the implication of his study would be and how this might be important for the economy?
An implication of such findings is that we must identify which individuals are vulnerable to e.g. alcohol abuse and then help give them the tools they need to stop their behaviour developing into an addiction.
This could help prevent enormous personal costs and also costs to society in terms of treating their addiction.
sibiing influences
Studies have shown that the behaviour of older siblings is strongly associated with adolescent substance abuse.
In fact this effect is thought to be greater than parental influence on substance use.
This is thought to be due to modelling, older siblings serve as role models for younger siblings.
If a younger sibling sees an older sibling drinking alcohol or smoking this normalises this behaviour for them.
1✅2❌Eval of sibling influences and family
✅Support for the role of the family influences - There is evidence that supports the importance of family influences on substance abuse and addictive behaviour. Bahr found that the family characteristics that were most strongly associated with an increase of binge drinking, smoking and drug use as they were linked to parental attitudes and sibling substance use.
They also found that teens with parents who were tolerant of substance use were more likely to interact with peers who smoked, drank or used drugs.
These findings suggest that family influences and peer influences are not independent of each other, in that the tolerant parental attitudes make it more likely that adolescents will seek the company of peers that endorse substance abuse.
❌Substance abuse may be due to a lack of parental influence- It is also possible that alcohol and drug use may result from a withdrawal of parental involvement rather than any particular type of parental modelling or parenting style.
Kerr suggested that a lack of parental monitoring may result from adolescents disclosing too much info about their substance abuse to their parents.
The parent’s inability to deal with this info may cause them to stop monitoring offspring whom they perceive as already beyond their control. This allows the adolescent to continue their abuse and become more vulnerable to peer influences.
❌Intervention studies tend to ignore sibling influences - Most attempts at family intervention relating to substance use in adolescence target only parents rather than siblings. Feinberg claimed that failure to address sibling influences is likely to hinder efforts to reduce early substance use and later substance dependence.
peer influences
Positive parenting may discourage substance abuse but also in their children’s friends by acting as a mentor for them, these adolescents may feel freer to express concerns they may not be able to express with their own parents.
eval of peer ifluencers
Support for peer influences through social media
Research on social media supports the claim that peer influences are an important influence on addictive behaviour.
For example Moreno studied 400 MySpace profiles of 17 to 20 year olds and found that 56% of these profiles contained reference to alcohol.
Also Litt found that teenagers who viewed peers Facebook profiles that portrayed alcohol use are more likely to drink themselves.
After exposure to these profiles, these teenagers reported a greater willingness to use alcohol, more positive feelings towards it and lower perceptions of its negative consequences; and makes them view such behaviours as normal.
Real world application: Reducing peer influences
Adolescent alcohol abuse has become a major public health concern. For example Pitkanen found that early onset of drinking was a significant risk factor for alcohol dependence in adulthood.
Social norm interventions were developed to address this problem. This approach is based on the idea that adolescent behaviour is influenced by misperceptions of how their peers think and act.
Peers tend to overestimate how much problem behaviour their fellow peers engage in (e.g. alcohol or drug use) this then causes them to increase their own drinking or drug use.
Correcting these misperceptions (e.g. through media campaigns) will then result in a decrease in the problem behaviour and lesson the likelihood of later substance abuse.
What are the two models of change for addiction?
- Prochaska’s six stage model
- Theory of planned behaviour
theorry of planned behaviour summary
According to the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) an individual’s decision to engage in a particular behaviour (e.g. to give up drinking alcohol) can be directly predicted by their intention to engage in that behaviour.
Intention arises from three key influences:
Our personal attitudes, our beliefs about what others think and our beliefs about our ability to change our behaviour.
Thus the individual’s personal attitudes towards gambling, their perception of what their close family would think of their gambling and their own beliefs about their ability to quit; all combined together influences the person’s intention to stop gambling.
what are the the three step of theoery of planned behaviour
- personal attitudes
- subjective norms
- percieved behaviour control
ToPB: 1. personal attitudes
This refers to the addicted persons attitudes towards their addiction. It depends on whether they view their behaviour in a favourable or unfavourable way.
An addict’s overall attitude is formed by weighing up the balance of these positive and negative evaluations.
For instance for a gambler their favourable attitudes might be, the thrill, occasional win, escape from terrible life, versus the unfavourable attitudes, I lose more money than I win, it makes me anxious and takes up all my time.
The winning side will determine the personal attitude of that individual.
