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Who is the addict? With addictive tragedies striking every community in the nation - The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition many millions of Americans addicted to alcohol and drugs alone - legions of scientists are asking:
What aspects of psychological makeup contribute to addiction? Are there common threads that weave through all addictions, from hard drugs to cigarettes, from gambling to overeating?
It is part of a much broader effort that has already seen progress in understanding the chemistry of addiction, as biochemists isolate the chemicals and mechanisms by which the brain gives itself pleasure. And the whole panoply of addiction research has led to insights that buttress a profusion of therapies. Though some of them hold great promise, all would benefit from an increased understanding of the addictive personality.
Despite the wide gulf between an addiction to drugs and an addiction to gambling, some mental health experts find it useful to view addiction as including all self-destructive, compulsive behaviors. Some even go so far as to include the relatively benign activity of compulsive television-watching. In bringing together much of the existing knowledge on the personality's role in addictions, with an emphasis on drugs and alcohol, a new study prepared for the National Academy of Sciences concludes that there is no single set of psychological characteristics that embrace all addictions.
But the study does see common elements from addiction to addiction. The report finds that there are several ''significant personality factors'' that can contribute to addiction:. This may help explain why adolescence and other stressful transition periods are often associated with the most severe drug and alcohol problems. The author of the study, Alan R.
Lang, a psychology professor at Florida State University, believes that the continuing search for the personality traits that play a part in the development of addictions is an essential part of the broader fight against addiction, an opinion shared by others familiar with the field.
Moreover, Dr. Lang believes that the insights provided by this kind of research could lead to much more effective preventive programs than those available today, to be used ''before problems reach the critical stage. The Inclusive Approach. The broad approach to addiction is taken by Lawrence J.
Hatterer, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the Cornell University Medical College who wrote in his book, ''The Pleasure Addicts'' Barnes that ''Addictive behavior The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition invaded every aspect of American life today.
We The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition feel the cloud of concern about becoming addictive - preoccupation with weight, smoking, drinking too much, or being caught in an excess The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition spending, acquiring, gambling, sex or work.
Among other activities which, done in excess, have been characterized as addictive behavior are caffeine consumption, eating of chocolates or other sugar-laden foods, television watching, playing video games and even running. But not all The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition are equally harmful and not all behavior that could lead to addiction necessarily does.
Although Dr. Hatterer is among those who argue that addictions of all kinds are similar, he finds it useful to classify the abuse of alcohol, barbiturates and narcotics as ''hard addictions'' because of the quickness with which such substances affect many aspects of behavior, and adversely influence many people around the abuser.
Hatterer terms compulsive behavior such as excessive smoking, gambling, running, spending or work as ''soft addictions'' because the
consequences are not immediately felt by the abuser. None of these activities are considered to be addictions by Dr. Hatterer unless they involve excessive, repetitive use of pleasurable activities to cope with unmanageable internal conflict, pressure and stress.
While such activity may begin pleasurably in a person's life, the process in the addict involves increasing activity to achieve the same effect and eventually results in injury to the person's health or to his work, family and social relationships. The addicted person typically denies that his activity is detrimentally affecting him. If the addict is forced to stop, he finds he suffers physical or psychological withdrawal pains, and often feels
compelled to resume his excessive pattern.
Compulsiveness Is a Key. Moderation is the distinguishing characteristic. Most drinkers do not become alcoholics, and most runners do not become running addicts. However, if the runner is compulsively using his activity to cope with unresolved internal conflicts to the extent that he keeps injuring his body or destroying his work and family relationships, then he too has fallen victim to addictive behavior.
He has become so dependent on the physical ''high'' he gets from his allencompassing running that he cannot concern himself with the difficulties it is causing. Seeing common features in compulsive behavior, the national academy's Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior has recently explored dependence on opiates, alcohol, smoking, overeating, gambling and television watching.
The committee report, to be published in February, contains the section on the addictive personality by Dr. He based his review largely on studies of alcohol and drug abusers, the areas in which the preponderance of research has been done. On the basis of these studies and his own research, Dr.
Lang concluded that ''there is no single, unique personality entity that is a necessary and sufficient condition for substance use. Reasons for this include the fact that the same drug can affect people differently and that drugs fulfill various needs for different people. Among alcohol abusers, for instance, the academy's report found that research had focused on two types: first, the anxious, depressed neurotic who may drink to kill his psychological pain; second, the unstable antisocial personality who drinks for excitement or sensation-seeking.
Lang's contribution emphasized alcohol and drugs, the rest of the report did not shy away The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition insights into addictive behavior involving television-watching and overeating. According to Charles
P. O'Brien, a committee member and chief of psychiatry and head of the addiction research center at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Philadelphia, the academy committee found that different types of addicts ''resemble each other in various ways.
O'Brien said that people in all these addictions progressively needed greater quantities of stimulation to satisfy their needs and developed symptoms of withdrawal when deprived of the addictive activity. He also noted that addicts to one activity would often switch to another when deprived of opportunity to participate in the original addiction. O'Brien said there are very important similarities in the personality characteristics of the addictions studied, including tendencies to depression, dependent behavior and difficulty in formulating long-term personal goals because of a concentration on short-term goals.
While personality plays a significant part in addictive behavior, behavioral scholars often note that addictions are a product of the subtle interplay between social factors and psychological factors, as well as the physiological components - and an understanding of the precise mix remains elusive. Switching Addictions. Certainly the availability of drugs, and social and legal attitudes toward them, play important roles in whether addictions develop and continue.
For instance, research on veterans addicted to heroin in Vietnam indicated that only about eight percent of them continued the addiction after returning to the United States.
But many of those who stopped using heroin had troubles when they returned home with a drug more widely available in the United States, alcohol. This observation lends support to those who see personality traits playing a part in crossing over from one addiction to another. Drug availability and occupational stress help explain why ''physicians have the highest rate of opiate addiction of any group,'' according to Dr. He also notes that physicians have high rates of abuse of alcohol and mood-altering prescription drugs.
Charles Winick, a sociologist at the City College of New York, has also linked availability and stress to high rates of drug dependence among physicians, particularly psychiatrists and surgeons.
Since most people do not become addicts, what is known about the ''non-addict'' profile? Robert B. Millman, director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Service at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic at the New York Hospital describes the best candidates for this group as ''those people who have strong families, often with religious backgrounds and who have good social relations.
Although no one can say with certainty which kind of family is most likely to produce an addict, many mental The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition experts have strong views on the subject. For instance, Leon Wurmser, a psychiatry professor and former director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, notes that the potentially addictive child may well have been physically abused by parents, who are often themselves dependent on drugs or alcohol.
He notes that The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition child has often been lied to, shamed and humiliated by parents who act in a highly inconsistent manner. This legacy of brutality ''leaves the child in a helpless rage,'' Dr.
Wurmser says. He does not view authority, which has The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition represented by the parents, as something which should be respected, but as capriciously cruel. The child can feel completely out of control and is racked by feelings of violence toward those around him. For him, the use of narcotics can be a way of trying to suppress the highly aggressive feelings that have resulted from his early trauma.
Hatterer agrees that cruelty to children often contributes to later addiction; he says that most of the addicts of all kinds that he has seen in his practice have been physically abused as children. Hatterer also shares Dr. Wurmser's view that inconsistent parental behavior shapes many addictive persons. Dangers of Inconsistency.
There were shifts from too much to too little love, protection or discipline,'' Dr. Hatterer has written. There were also frequent instances of ''marked swings from unrealistic praise to destructive hypercritical behavior.
While behavioral scientists agree that the addiction problem is one of great breadth and depth, some point out that concern about all potentially addictive substances can be misplaced. For instance, Dr. Lang, the author of the academy study on the addictive personality, wrote that some of the evidence he surveyed ''suggested that total abstinence from alcohol may indicate rigidity of personality structure as maladaptive as problem drinking itself.
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Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. The report finds that there are several ''significant personality factors'' that can contribute to addiction: - Impulsive behavior, difficulty in delaying gratification, an antisocial personality and a disposition toward sensation seeking. Compulsiveness Is a Key Moderation is the
distinguishing characteristic. Switching Addictions Certainly the availability of drugs, and social and legal attitudes toward them, play important roles in whether addictions develop and continue.
Dangers of Inconsistency ''Every addictive adult I have treated has told either of excesses or inconsistencies or of deprivation or overindulgence in early life.
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An addictive behavior is a behavior, or a stimulus related The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition a behavior e. Addictions involving addictive behaviors are normally referred to as behavioral addictions. Compulsions and addictions are intertwined and reward is one major distinction between an addiction and a compulsion as it is experienced in obsessive-compulsive disorder.
An addiction is, by definition, a form of compulsion, and both addictions and compulsions involve operant reinforcement. In addiction, dopamine is released in the brain's reward system and is a motive for behavior i. In contrast, someone who experiences a compulsion as part of obsessive-compulsive disorder may not perceive anything rewarding from acting on the compulsion.
Often, it is a way of dealing with the obsessive part of the disorder, resulting in a feeling of relief i. Deep brain stimulation to the nucleus accumbensa region in the brain involved heavily in addiction and reinforcement learning, has proven to be an effective treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Addiction and dependence glossary [1] [2] [3] [4] addiction — a biopsychosocial disorder characterized by compulsively seeking to achieve a desired effect, such as intoxication, despite harm and adverse consequences to self and others addictive behavior — a behavior that is both rewarding and reinforcing addictive drug — a drug that is both rewarding and reinforcing dependence — an adaptive state associated with a withdrawal syndrome upon cessation of repeated exposure to a stimulus e.
Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. Despite the importance of numerous psychosocial factors, at its core, drug addiction involves a biological process: the ability of repeated exposure to a drug of abuse to induce changes in a vulnerable brain that drive the compulsive seeking and taking of drugs, and loss of control over drug use, that define a state of addiction.
Moreover, there is increasing evidence that, despite a range of genetic risks for addiction across the population, exposure to sufficiently high doses of a drug for long periods of time can transform someone who has relatively lower genetic loading into an addict.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Department of Neuroscience. Retrieved 9 February New England Journal of Medicine. Substance-use disorder: A diagnostic term in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5 referring to recurrent use of alcohol or other drugs that causes clinically and functionally significant impairment, such as health problems, disability, and failure to meet major
responsibilities at work, school, or home.
Depending on the level of severity, this disorder is classified as mild, moderate, or severe. Addiction: A term used to indicate the most severe, chronic stage of substance-use disorder, in which there is a substantial loss of self-control, as indicated by compulsive drug taking despite the desire to stop taking the drug. In the DSM-5, the term addiction is synonymous with the classification of severe substance-use disorder. Journal of Neural Transmission.
Retrieved Reinforcement disorders: Addiction and Dependence. Physical dependence Psychological dependence Withdrawal. Alcohol
detoxification Drug detoxification. Cognitive behavioral therapy The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition prevention Contingency management Community reinforcement approach and family training Motivational enhancement therapy Motivational interviewing Motivational therapy Physical exercise.
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How to cite this article: Griffiths M D. The Myth of 'Addictive Personality'. DOI: Go to Opinion Introduction References Introduction In the 30 years that I have been carrying out research into addiction, the question that I have been asked the most - particularly by those who work in the print and broadcast media - is whether there is such a thing as an 'addictive personality'?
Psychologists such as Sadava [ 1 ] have gone as far to say that 'addictive personality' is theoretically necessary, logically defensible, and empirically supportable. In essence, Makken simply argued that 'addictive personality' refers to the personality of an individual once they are addicted, The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition as such, this has little utility in understanding how
and why individuals become addictive.
I also agree with Cloninger et al. According to Nathan [ 6 ] there must be standards of proof to show valid associations between personality and addictive behaviour. He reported that for the personality trait or factor to genuinely exist it must:. Although I do not believe in the concept of 'addictive personality' this does not mean that personality factors are not important in the acquisition, development, and maintenance of addictive behaviours.
They clearly are. For instance, Kotov The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition al [ 7 ] examined the associations between substance use disorders SUDs and higher order personality traits i. Their review included studies with sample sizes ranged from 1, to 75, and findings demonstrated that SUD addicts were high on neuroticism and was the strongest personality trait associated with SUD addiction and low on conscientiousness. Many of the studies reviewed also reported that agreeableness and openness were largely unrelated to SUDs.
Malouff et al. Mixed-sex samples tended to have lower effect sizes than singlesex samples, suggesting that mixing sexes in data analysis may obscure the effects of personality. Hittner and Swickert [ 9 ] carried out a meta-analysis examining the association between sensation seeking and alcohol use. An analysis of 61 studies revealed a small to moderate size heterogeneous effect between alcohol use and total scores on the sensation seeking The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition.
Further analysis of the sensation seeking components indicated that disinhibition was most strongly correlated with alcohol use. Munafo et al. They included 25 cross-sectional studies that reported personality data for adult smokers and non-smokers and reported a significant difference between smokers and nonsmokers on both extraversion and neuroticism traits.
In relation to gambling disorder, MacLaren et al. Gambling addiction was shown to be associated with urgency, premeditation, perseverance, and sensation seeking aspects of impulsivity.
They concluded that individual personality characteristics may be important in the aetiology of pathological gambling and that the findings were similar to the meta-analysis of substance use disorders by Kotov et al. More recently, Andreassen et al. They assessed seven behavioural addictions i. Of 21 inter-correlations between the seven behavioural addictions, all were positive and nine significantly so. More specifically:.
Overall these studies examining personality and addiction consistently demonstrate that addictive behaviours are correlated with high levels of neuroticism and low levels of conscientiousness. However, there is no evidence of a single trait or set of traits that is predictive of addiction and addiction alone. Others have also reached the same conclusion based on the available evidence.
For instance, Pols [ 13 ] noted that findings from prospective studies are inconsistent with retrospective and cross-sectional studies leading to the conclusion that the 'addictive personality' is a myth. In another review of drug addictions, Conway et al. Most recently, Szalavitz [ 1617 ] noted that:.
Research finds The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition universal character traits that are common to all addicted people.
Only half have more than one addiction not including cigarettes —and many can control their engagement with some addictive substances or activities, but not others". Clearly there are common findings across a number of differing addictions such as similarities in personality profiles using the 'big five' traits but it is hard to establish whether these traits are antecedent to the addiction or caused by it.
Within most addictions there appear to be more than one subtype of addict suggesting different pathways of how and why individuals might develop various addictions [ 18 - 20 ]. If this is the case - and I believe that it is - where does that leave the 'addictive personality' construct?
Ultimately, all addicts have to take some responsibility in the development of their problematic behaviour and they have to take some ownership for overcoming their addiction. Personally, I believe it is better to concentrate research into risk and protective factors of addiction rather than further research of 'addictive personality'. Not every addict has a personality disorder, and not every person with a personality disorder has an addiction [ 22 ].
While some personality disorders appear to have an association with addiction including Antisocial Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder [ 23 ], just because a person has some of the personality traits associated with addiction does not mean they are, or will become, an addict [ 22 ].
There is no personality trait that guarantees an individual will develop an addiction and there is little evidence for an 'addictive personality' that is predictive of addiction alone. Canad Psychol Review 19 3 The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition Griffiths MD An exploratory study of gambling cross addictions. J Gambl Stud Griffiths MD Behavioural addictions: An issue for everybody?
J Workplace Learn 8 3 : Nakken D The addictive personality: Understanding the addictive process and compulsive behaviour. Hazelden, Center City, MN. Adv Alcohol Substance Abuse 7 : Nathan PE The addictive behavior is the personality The Addictive Personality Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior 2nd edition the addict.
J Consult ClinPsychol Psychol Bull 5 : J Drug Educ 37 3 : Addict Behav 31 8 : ClinPsychol Rev 31 6 : J Behav Addict 2: Pols RG The addictive personality: A myth. Drug Alcohol Rev 3 1 : Kerr JS.
Hum Psychopharm S9-S Drug Alcohol Depend 71 1 : Szalavitz M Unbroken brain: A revolutionary new way of understanding addiction. Scientific American, April 5. Alcohol Res Health 20 1 : Blaszczynski A, NowerL A pathways model of pathological gambling. Addiction Moran E Varieties of pathological gambling.
Br J Psychiatry J Subst Use Griffiths MD The psychology of addictive behaviour. In: M. Harper Collins, London, UK, pp. Parke A, Griffiths MD, Irwing P Personality traits in pathological gambling: Sensation seeking, deferment of gratification and competitiveness as risk factors. Addict Res Theory Our Media Partner. Go to Opinion Introduction References. Member In:. No part of this content may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means as per the standard guidelines of fair use.
