Christin Koosman's List: Capstone Project

•  

  The search for an  alcoholic personality
• The search for an alcoholic personality
• two broad bands of personality, impulsivity/novelty seeking and  neuroticism/negative emotionality, are associated with alcoholism
• sons of male alcoholics are at increased risk of alcoholism
• antisocial behaviour and hyperactivity are related to later alcoholism
• contradictory findings
• Genetic epidemiological studies suggest that personality measures play a modest  but significant role in the genetic influence of alcoholism.
• The most vulnerable to alcoholism
• and high neuroticism
• high impulsivity
• Antisocial behaviour and hyperactivity are the most consistent behaviours  associated with alcoholism.
• are associated with many other psychiatric conditions
• There is no alcoholic personality nor are there personality measures which are  specific to vulnerability to later alcohol dependence
• • This still doesn't explain whether alcoholism is more highly influenced by genetics or by an individual's surroundings.
• Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
• alcoholics are a distinct entity and are different from other people
• • Does this mean there are characteristics commonly found in alcoholics, but they don't mean that inevitably, a person with this trait will become and alcoholic?
• Differences were usually reported but the studies were often contradictory and  inconclusive.
• alcoholics are ‘different in so many ways it makes no difference’ [2].
• ‘It does not seem to emerge (that there is)… any specific personality trait or  physical characteristic which inevitability would lead to excessive symptomatic  drinking’.
• criticised the utility of personality as a way of explaining behaviour in  general [5]
• certain behaviours appear to predispose individuals to alcoholism, but these  behaviours were not conceptualised as personality.
• Robins [8] also reported higher rates of alcoholism  among men who had had conduct disorder as a child.
• It appeared that alcoholics who also abused other drugs had different  personality characteristics from those who did not and these characteristics had  implications for treatment.
• repeated demonstration that genetic factors contribute fundamentally to  individual differences in alcohol related behaviours [9].
• suggested that personality may be an important mediator of the genetic effects  of alcoholism [e.g. 10].
• • Certain personality traits can keep people from becoming alcohol dependent.

  • So genetically, when someone is predisposed, we count on their personality to keep them from falling into that disease.
• meaning of each term
• alcoholism includes a wide variety of symptoms
• alcoholism is probably heterogeneous.
• alcoholism means alcohol dependence,
• • Ex: If someone has an alcoholic parent, they can go one of two ways; detesting alcohol and staying away from it as a result of becoming more self-aware, or they can follow in their parents' footsteps because they grow up angry about their situation.

  • What about the differences between the way alcohol is viewed in the home?
• Most formal definitions of personality note that it involves behaviours and  emotions which are characteristic of an individual, stable over time and  situations, and have some motivational and adaptive significance.

31 more annotations...

• studies have repeatedly shown a high prevalence of alcoholism among  the relatives of alcoholics.
• Separating "nature" from "nurture" is a difficult (some say  impossible)
• The studies can be grouped into five types: (1) family studies, (2)  twin studies, (3) adoption studies, (4) genetic marker studies and  (5) "selfselection" animal studies.

1 more annotation...