Personality Flashcards
Eysenck’s theory of personality, link to addiction
personality measured on three dimensions: extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism.
addiction develops as it meets a persons need relating to personality profile
Neuroticism and self-medication
neurotic - anxious, moody, irritable.
addiction used to self-medicate stress/worry. low self esteem
Sinha
stress can initiate addiction and can cause relapse. feel they need addicition to ‘treat’ how they’re feeling. if someone is more susceptible to stress they may feel they need addictive behaviour to overcome it
Baumeister
low self esteem can lead to people acting in self-defeating manner to escape self awareness. use addictive behaviour to avoid negative feelings about themselves.
Psychoticism and impulsivity
psychotic - impulsive, impatient, aggressive.
don’t consider consequences of engaging with behaviour. e.g. smoking wont hurt them in the moment so it’s ok.
Dalley et al - impulsive rats had higher cocaine intake than low impulsivity rats.
Stevens
impulsive people less successful in treatments and abstinence. more likely to drop out and less likely to achieve and maintain abstinence
link between introversion/extraversion and addiction
no clear link. Gossop & Eysenck - drug addicts were more introverted. B
National Institute of Drug Abuse
(novel)
extroverts tend to have more positive thoughts. Introverts have more negative thoughts and emotions, such as anxiety and depression. This relationship between introverts and addiction could leave introverts more vulnerable to substance abuse.
link to biology
Eysenck - personality has innate bio basis. genes determine activity of nervous system - can determine extrover/introvert, extroverts seek stimulation (under active ns) could cause addiction.
Terraccino et al
Five-factor model personality profile of drug users.
smokers score lower on conscientiousness and higher of neuroticism than never smokers.
cocaine/heroin users very high neuroticism, very low conscientiousness.
link between addiction and low conscientiousness
heroin addicts in India
110 addicts took EPQ
high scores on psychoticism and neuroticism and lie scale. low score on extroversion.
Antisocial personality disorder
disregards tights of others, violates social norms, irresponsible. lack of remorse, manipulative.
rare in population but 40-50% with substance abuse disorder meet criteria
cause and effect
research mainly correlational, tests given to people already addicted, don’t know what they were like before.
Dong et al
give Chinese uni students EPQ at beginning and 2 yrs later. assessed internet addiction, high N and P
biology and personality
not sufficient explanation alone. personality characteristics have relationship with dopamine. Bucknoltz - high impulsivity people had greater dopamine release in response to amphetamines. more vulnerable to addiction as experience greater higher
