This paper reviews a study investigating whether an addictive personality exists among men with excessive alcohol consumption. Researchers compared 100 male participants with high alcohol intake to 131 controls using the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Findings indicate that men with excessive alcohol consumption scored within normative ranges on all KSP scales, with no significant personality differences between groups. The author discusses these results, proposes that personality traits may be masked rather than created by substance use, and suggests future research should include female participants to examine how gender differences in impulse control and social influence might affect personality trait expression.
The question of whether an addictive personality exists has been widely debated in psychology and addiction research. To investigate this question, Berglund and colleagues designed a study examining personality traits in male individuals with excessive alcohol consumption compared to a population-based control group. The research enrolled 100 men with high alcohol consumption and 131 controls. Participants with excessive alcohol consumption were recruited through flyers, advertisements, newspaper announcements, and panels from a population-based Swedish Twin Registry. This multi-method recruitment strategy helped ensure a diverse sample while maintaining population representativeness. The primary research question focused on whether men with excessive alcohol use display distinct personality characteristics that differ from the general population, or whether no such addictive personality profile exists.
The study employed two key measurement approaches: the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The KSP is a comprehensive personality assessment that measures 15 distinct personality dimensions through a 135-item questionnaire. Respondents answer each item on a four-point Likert scale, and their responses are organized into 15 subscales including somatic anxiety, muscular tension, indirect aggression, verbal aggression, and related constructs. This instrument provides a standardized, validated approach to measuring a broad spectrum of personality traits across diverse populations.
Principal Component Analysis is a statistical technique that identifies underlying patterns and relationships within complex datasets. In this study, PCA was used to examine hidden structural arrangements of personality traits and potential relationships between the excessive-drinking group and the control group. The method employs scaling and mean-centering procedures to ensure that all variables receive equal weight in the analysis, allowing researchers to detect whether systematic differences in personality structure existed between groups.
The results revealed that both individuals with excessive alcohol consumption and control participants scored within the normative range on all KSP scales. Importantly, the PCA analysis showed no systematic group separation or distinctions between those with excessive drinking and controls. Among participants with high alcohol consumption, 89 percent scored within the normal personality range on both the KSP and PCA assessments. Specific findings included that 11 percent of the excessive-consumption group showed elevated impulse control issues, while only 3 percent of the control group displayed this pattern. Additionally, a higher percentage of the excessive-drinking group scored higher on psychic anxiety and lower on impulsivity and monotony avoidance scales. Despite these minor variations, the overall pattern indicated no fundamental personality alteration in individuals with excessive alcohol consumption when compared to the general population.
The author interprets these findings to suggest that excessive alcohol consumption does not create a distinct addictive personality. Instead, the analysis proposes an alternative hypothesis: individuals with certain underlying personality traits—such as low self-confidence, psychic anxiety, social anxiety, and aggression—may possess these characteristics before substance use begins. The author argues that alcohol consumption does not fundamentally change personality but rather makes existing traits more visible or apparent to others. This interpretation aligns with the disinhibition hypothesis, which suggests that alcohol reveals traits that individuals may suppress in sober states. Under this framework, when observers say someone "becomes a different person" when drinking, they are actually witnessing the manifestation of pre-existing personality characteristics that are normally concealed. This perspective challenges the traditional addictive-personality model and suggests that substance-use vulnerability may relate more to trait expression and behavioral inhibition than to fundamental personality transformation.
"Need for gender inclusion and expanded participant diversity"
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