risk factors Flashcards
strength:highlights the importance of taking a holistic approach
E – This is evident in the biopsychosocial model. According to this model, addiction is the result of a combination of risk factors that fall under the broad categories of biological (e.g., genes), psychological (e.g., personality), and social factors (e.g., stress, family and peers).
E – This model is holistic as it proposes addiction cannot be explained by any specific risk factor or even a specific combination of risk factors. This holistic approach is necessary, as it’s clear that there are many pathways to developing an addiction, involving a combination of risk factors from biological,
psychological and social levels of explanation, each of which contribute a small increase in the risk of developing an addiction.
L – Therefore, it’s best to understand the development of addiction as resulting from many different risk factors, rather than a single factor or specific combination.
weakness:rely on evidence from correlation studies.
E – It isn’t possible to directly manipulate any of the variables associated with addiction, as doing so would be highly unethical (e.g., you can’t randomly allocate people to experience chronic stress or grow up with parents with a permissive style of parenting). Consequently, researchers need to rely on evidence of correlations between the presence of risk factors and addiction.
E – Such research is subject to all the issues related to correlational research. One important issue is the direction of causation.fro example A person’s personality could cause them to develop an addiction, but also having a drug addiction to cause a person to develop a different personality (e.g., to become more impulsive).
l:therefore it’s difficult to say with confidence that a particular risk factor causes a person to develop an addiction
