Risk Factors In The Development Of Addiction Flashcards
What are the risk factors in the development of addiction?
Genetic vulnerability
Stress
Personality
Family influences
Peers
How is genetic vulnerability a risk factors of addiction?
Two plausible direct mechanisms that create a genetic vulnerability to addiction:
1. D2 receptor - dopamine transmission is affected by the number of dopamine receptors you have, and this number is genetically controlled. There are different types of dopamine receptor. People who are addicted have been found to have a abnormally low number of D2 receptors. Less receptors = less dopamine activity (so using drugs is a way of compensating for this deficiency)
- Nicotine enzyme (CYP2A6) - some individuals are more able to metabolise certain substances and this is linked to addiction. Micheal Pianezza et al. (1998) found that some people lack a fully functioning enzyme (CYP2A6) which metabolises nicotine. They also smoke significantly less than those smokers with the fully functioning version. Expression of the CYP2A6 enzyme is genetically determined.
How is stress a risk factors of addiction?
Susan Andersen and Martin Teicher (2008)
- highlight the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in later addiction
- they argue that early experiences of severe stress have damaging effects in a young brain in a sensitive period of development
- this creates a vulnerability to later stress
- further stressful experiences in adolescence and adulthood trigger the early vulnerability and make it more likely that such a person will self-medicate with drugs or other behavioural addictions
How is personality a risk factors of addiction?
- addiction is linked to disordered personality
- most people with antisocial personality disorder (APD) are also addicted substance abusers
- Lee Robins (1998) argues that APD is a causal risk factor for addiction as having APD means that a person breaks social norms, is impulsive and may behave criminally
- therefore it is also inevitable that someone with APD will try drugs at a young age because drug-taking offers a combination of norm-breaking criminal activity and also satisfying one’s own desires
How are family influences a risk factor of addiction?
Jennifer Livingston et al. (2010)
- found that final-year-high-school students who were allowed by their family to drink alcohol at home were significantly more likely to drink excessively the following year at college
- also adolescents, who believe their parents have little or no interest in monitoring their behaviour, are more likely to develop an addiction
- the key determinant here is the adolescent’s perception
- this is more important than whether or not parents really monitor the adolescent’s behaviour
How are peers a risk factor of addiction?
Mary O’connell et al. (2009)
- suggest there are three major elements to peer influence as a risk factor for alcohol addiction:
1. An at-risk adolescent’s attitudes and norms about drinking are influenced by associating with peers who use alcohol
2. These experienced peers provide more opportunities for the at-risk individual to use alcohol
3. The individual overestimates how much their peers are drinking, which means they drink more to keep up with the perceived norm
A03: Evaluate genetic vulnerability
+ support from adoption studies
Kenneth Kendler et al. (2012)
• used data from the National Swedish Adoption Study and looked at especially adults who had been adopted away, as children, from biological families in which at least one parent had an addiction
• these children later had a significantly greater risk of developing an addiction themselves, compared with adopted-away individuals with no addicted parent in their biological families
• this supports the role of genetic vulnerability as an important risk factor, and is supported by other research (e.g. twin studies)
A03: Evaluate stress
- one limitation of research into stress is the issue of causation
• many studies have shown there is a strong positive correlation between stressful experiences and addiction
• however this doesn’t necessarily mean that stress is the risk factor
• what matters is the order in which the stress and the addiction developed
• some people may become addicted even without the experiencing any significant life stress
• their addictions then create greater levels of stress in their lives because of the negative effects of the lifestyle
• this would still produce a positive correlation but in this case addiction caused the stress, not vice versa
• therefore we cannot conclude that stress is a significant risk factor based on correlational studies alone
A03: Evaluate personality
+ one strength of personality is support for the link between addiction and APD
• many studies show that APD and alcohol dependence are co-morbid
• but is APD a causal factor?
Miriam Bahlmann et al. (2002)
• interviewed 55 alcohol-dependent people of which 18 were also diagnosed with APD
• for these 18 ppts, the researchers found that APD developed four years before their alcohol dependency, on average
• this finding suggests that APD is indeed a personality-related risk factor for alcohol addiction
A03: Evaluate family influences
+ one strength is research support for family influences as a risk factor
Bertha Madras et al. (2019)
• found a strong positive correlation between parents’ use if cannabis and their adolescent children’s use if cannabis, nicotine, alcohol and opoids
• it may be that adolescents observe their parents using a specific drug and model this behaviour
• they may also infer that their parents approve of drug use generally, so go on to use other drugs
• this supports the view that parental substance abuse is a potential risk factor for wider addiction in adolescent offspring
A03: Evaluate peers
+ one strength of peers as a risk factor is real-world application
• social norms marketing advertising (SNMA) is an intervention to change mistaken beliefs about how much peers are drinking
• it uses mass media advertising to provide messages and statistics about how much people really drink
• e.g. beer mats, posters and leaflets in a Student Union Bar might carry messages such as “Students overestimate what others drink by 44%”
• students then get a more accurate picture to correct their overestimations
• this means that identification of risk factors can suggest ways to reduce the influence of such factors
