Influence of alcoholism and gender on the relationship between personality and drinking motivation

Susan Mosher Ruiz,Mary M Valmas,Maaria I Kemppainen,Kayle S Sawyer,Marlene Oscar-Berman

doi:10.1186/1940-0640-10-s1-a56

Abstract

Background Alcoholic men and women tend to have differential patterns of associated comorbid psychiatric disorders, distinct cognitive and emotional abnormalities, and varying corresponding structural and functional brain abnormalities. Further, although converging, there remain gender differences in sociocultural norms related to alcohol use behaviors. As such, men and women may be motivated to use and abuse alcohol for different reasons. Previous literature has suggested a role for personality in drinking motives, but this relationship generally has been assessed as a risk factor for adolescents and young adults rather than in an adult population. The goal of the present study was to determine how alcoholism and gender are related to the associations between personality traits and drinking motivation.

Highlights

Alcoholic men and women tend to have differential patterns of associated comorbid psychiatric disorders, distinct cognitive and emotional abnormalities, and varying corresponding structural and functional brain abnormalities
Participants completed the 20-item self-report Drinking Motives Questionnaire Revised (DMQ-R), an instrument developed for use in adolescents that recently has been validated for adults
* Correspondence: smosher@bu.edu 1Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article. Both alcoholic men and women scored higher than their respective same-sex controls on the personality trait of neuroticism, while controls of both genders scored higher than alcoholics on the lie scale

Summary

Introduction

Alcoholic men and women tend to have differential patterns of associated comorbid psychiatric disorders, distinct cognitive and emotional abnormalities, and varying corresponding structural and functional brain abnormalities. Converging, there remain gender differences in sociocultural norms related to alcohol use behaviors. Men and women may be motivated to use and abuse alcohol for different reasons. Previous literature has suggested a role for personality in drinking motives, but this relationship generally has been assessed as a risk factor for adolescents and young adults rather than in an adult population. The goal of the present study was to determine how alcoholism and gender are related to the associations between personality traits and drinking motivation

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion